


The Queen that wasn't

by atomicmuffin



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Naruto
Genre: ANBU Guards, And So Does Nara Deers, Angst and Humor, Another Weird Crossover, Bisexual Female Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Chakraless Lucy Pevensie, Civilian Lucy Pevensie, Confused Nara Shikaku, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Improbable Shadow Jutsu Theories For The Sake Of Drama, In Dire Need Of Betaing, Lesbian Character, Lucy Pevensie Reborn As Senju Hikari, Madness, Mental Health Issues, Naruto Timeline Not Making Any Sense, Not Beta Read, Original Character(s), Original Characters Dying Like Flies, Post-The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Pre-Naruto Canon Era, Rare Pairings, Reincarnation, Sealing Theories, Second Shinobi War, Shikaku Doesn't Get It, Slow Burn, Summoning Lore, Summons Are Narnian AU, Summons Love Lucy, Third Shinobi War, Unreliable Narrator, Women Being Awesome, Worldbuilding, not really - Freeform, probable typos, the consequencies of being reborn in a world with chakra
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-05-27 20:02:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15032150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atomicmuffin/pseuds/atomicmuffin
Summary: Nara Shikaku needed only one look to know the girl did not belonged to their world, and ten years to figure out why.Or: summons are Talking Folk, a valiant queen is reborn in Konoha and Shikaku has no clue how to deal with feelings. Nara Shikaku-centric, Lucy/Shikaku. Post LWW AU, Second and Third Shinobi Wars Era.





	1. Part I: the girl and the deers

Even the least attentive Academy student knew this: chakra was life, life was chakra. The lesson had been hammered again and again to the few idiots who hadn't already noticed. Where there was chakra, there was life, let it be shinobi, civilians, animals, plants, or mosquitos. And reciprocally, where there wasn't chakra, then there was no life. Simple, basic, logic. Shikaku liked his lectures best that way.

What had life had chakra.  _Except this girl hadn't_.

Shikaku had never realized how much he relied on his chakra senses before that moment. Of course, he was far from being a sensor, nor had he worked towards that direction, or  _any_  direction to be honest. As a typical son of the Nara Clan, Shikaku made a point to invest as little energy as possible into academic skills in any official fashion. Nonetheless, no matter the degree of personal disinterest, every shinobi or shinobi-to-be, including the laziest ones had unconsciously developped a latent sense to detect chakra. To detect  _life._

And yet, he could felt  _nothing_  from the girl currently frolicking with his Clan's herd. Had the child not been surrounded by adoring deers, Shikaku wondered if he would have even noticed her presence.

He had never felt so genuinely disturbed in his nine years of pattented indifference. She might as well have been a  _corpse_  to him, a very well-preserved, pretty and smiling corpse moving, running and  _breathing_. Still hidden beneath the comforting shadows of the trees, he could only stare in shocked disbelief as the younger child  _that shouldn't exist_  giggled under Moriko's ministrations, their grumpiest elderly doe obviously unbothered by the  _thing'_ s wrongness.

"Aren't you the cutest thing, my lovely friend," she cooed as she smoothered Daiki with enthusiastic caresses. The shy fawn, who had run hiding behind his mother's legs when Shikaku had came to feed him not two days ago, looked  _that_ close to perish of pleasure under her tickling hands. And that by itself would have been suspicious. Shikaku had known those deers all his life, and they had never shown more than polite indifference to his presence, not unlike Nara themselves. He had never see them demonstrate that much affection to anyone, even less a complete stranger.

This couldn't be happening right now. Chakra signals could be attenuated, the best trackers could even lower their apparent level to the size of a mosquito, but never entirely  _erased_.

Genjutsu? A pretty shitty one then, because no one would look at this monstriosity and not notice the trickery. If this crap was Shikane's idea for a joke, they were going to have words.

" _Kai_ ," he whispered while making the appropriate hand signs.

Nothing happened. Except from attracting the girl's attention to him, which had not been not the objective  _at all_. Things were not looking up for Shikaku. He had just came to feed the deers, like he had  _every single day_ , for fuck's sake. Why couldn't the exitement happen to people who actually seeked for it?

"Oh hello there," she smiled hesitantly as she stared right at him with bright blue eyes. "That's not a very polite thing to do."

Moriko seemed to think so as well, if the mean glare she gratified him with meant anything. The rest of herd whined in genuine distress as their new creepy friend gently pushed Daiki out of her lap and rose from the ground.

At that instant, Shikaku seriously considered running away to call for reinforcement. A stranger roaming free in the middle of Konoha, clearly using some kind of weird jutsu to remain completly undetectable,  _which wasn't suppose to be possible_ , and stealing their deers' loyalty right under their nose. Probably for some nefarious purpose yet to be uncovered. Shikaku on the other hand only had three years of unenthusiastic training at the Academy under his belt, and the so called Nara strategic mind.

Had she not looked like an armless six-year old, he would have been gone long ago. As it was, Shikaku had yet to get rid of his remanant of manly pride. He took a decided step forward.

"This is a private proprerty, miss," Shikaku tried to channel his grand-uncle Takeshi at his grumpiest. It worked better on bitter old men than apathic nine years old, or so Moriko's unimpressed glare told him.

Instead of turning repentant _and going away_ , like he had hoped, the girl's smile grew even more wilder. "Oh, I had no idea," she outright lied with a cheerful grin. "Although it's not very nice to keep such lovely friends to yourself Nara-san!"

The girl looked positively eerie, standing in the middle of his deers, her golden hair running free on her shoulders, while Shikaku's senses kept on screaming at him that  _there was no one there._  She stared at him with intense curiosity, like she had seen another human being before, and who knew, perhaps she never had. Perhaps his aunt Fubuki wasn't that crazy after all, and there were indeed spirits haunting the forest. Perhaps Shikaku had stumbled upon a Youkai visiting the deers  _by accident_ , and now his family would never find his body.

"Maybe we can find..." she started as she took a step towards him, miraculously avoiding to walk on any deer's hoof, and Shikaku couldn't help the instinctive gesture of revulsion at her approach.

He took a step back. She stopped, and her cheerful eagerness just wavered under his eyes. A pure expression of hurt, and longing, and loneliness flickered for half a second, before she reigned her features back into a mask of polite indifference.

Shikaku had offended the Yokai of unkown intentions. Now he was definitely going to die.

"Please forgive me for the intrusion, Nara-san," she bowed to him, her tiny back stiff and her eyes blank. "It won't happen again."

If deers' glares could kill, Shikaku would be nothing more than a bloody puddle on the floor. The traitorous beasts made an attempt to follow their new friend when she attempted to entangle herself from their herd. "Aw, you must let me go I'm afraid, my friends! We wouldn't want Nara-san to sue us, right?"

"Indeed," a unfamiliar male voice said out of nowhere.

Shikaku's hand flew to his kunai pocket, before he recognized the ANBU uniform of the masked shinobi who had shunshin'ed next to the girl. She seemed neither surprised nor afraid as she grinned unapologically to the newcomer.

"Owl! You're getting better, only half an hour to find me! I am so proud of you!"

Shikaky blinked in raw surprise as the petite blond rose her hand to pat the professional killer's arm. To his credit, Agent Owl didn't even react to her patronizing touch.

"Ojo-sama. You mustn't run away. For your own safety," he sighed while trying to stay monotonous, but with the exasperated tone of those who had to repeat the same thing again and again. His father used that voice a lot.

Undeterred, 'Ojo-sama' only pouted, pushing her arms around Kaede's soft neck and gratifying her bodyguard, or so Shikaku assumed, with the biggest puppy eyes he had ever seen. The ANBU stiffened with uncomfort, and honestly the Nara couldn't blame him. He doubted they covered that kind of formation at ANBU training.

"But I'm so booooored," the girl whined, only gaining in sheer cuteness when the doe put her stout on her blond curls. You could almost forget the revulsing feeling of blablant wrongness. _Almost_. "Plus, I gotta keep you guys on your toes. Wouldn't want you to get rusty."

Shikaky stared in morbid fascination as Owl bent to take the girl into his arms, to the despair of Kaede and the rest of the herd. Didn't it felt weird, to hold her while your chakra senses kept on denying her existence?

"There is no need, Ojo-sama," and then the ANBU turned towards him. "Nara Skikaku-san. You will not speak to anyone of what you just saw."

On the plus side, the girl didn't seemed to be a malevolent spirit of the forest after all. She was however classified,  _so classified_ , and Shikaku way above his clearance. He managed to nod in understanding, which seemed good enough for her bodyguard.

"It's like you're ashamed of me, Owl," she laughed with poorly hidden bitterness, before waving at Shikaku without looking at him. "Pleasure meeting you Nara-san!"

His stomach recoiled in guilt. He had...hurt her, though unintentionally, and yet she kept on trying to spare his feelings. Aside from her...presence issue, she seemed like a genuinely good person. And a very lonely one.

The deers adored her. The deers never adored anyone, no even Naras who had taken care of them for centuries now.

"Wait," he called out, before he could stop himself. "I apologize for..."

He couldn't even say it. His rudeness? His disgust? She seemed to get his nebulous meaning anyway, and smiled gently at him, like he had been the one to gift something precious to her. "It's alright. I understand. Thank you."

And then both bodyguard and protegee were off, leaving behind them a herd of upset deers and one bemused pre-genin.

Thank you, she had said.  _Thank you_. Now Shikaku truly felt like a jerk. The glare of pure contempt Moriko granted him didn't help.

.

.

"You're distracted," Nara Shikako, estimated Clan Head, Hokage's advisor and his beloved mother commented as she proceeded to destroy his struggling defense.

Nothing new under the sun, so. Shikaku frowned as his knight tragically perished to his attackant's merciless advance. He had never came even close to win any Shogi game against his mother before, and wasn't going to start now. Although, she was right, he was more distracted than usual.

 _She_  kept on bugging on his mind. Her odd cheerfulness. Her sad smile. So troublesome.

"Not really," he shruggled, keeping his attention to the game. He silently congratulated himself for  _not_ staring at the forest yet again.

His mother was not impressed by his acting skills. What a shock. "Hm. So you're not bothered with what happened with Hikari-sama then?"

Shikaku stilled in the middle of a move. Hikari. Light. Was that  _her_  name? "Who's Hikari-sama?" he asked with false confusion. He doubted there were much secrets in this village his mother wasn't cleared to know, but. Just in case. Better safe than sorry, especially when it came to got back to the word given to an ANBU. An ANBU that knew where he lived, and could have found out with no trouble if he didn't anyway.

"At ease, kiddo," Shikako snorted, with what definitly looked like a hint of amused pride. "I'm giving you clearance."

The youngest Nara sat back on his seat, their game completly forgotten. He might get some answer to the puzzle who had been eating his brain for days now. He smirked just for the form. "You got some papers to certify that, Ma'am?"

"Cheeky brat," she laughed and bent over to ruffle his hair. "Don't want to talk about girls with your old Mom, right? I get it."

She was baiting him, obviously. She knew that, he knew that, the whole Clan, nay, the whole village knew that. Yet he couldn't held back his disgusted reaction. "Geez, Mom, what's wrong with you? Girls are...and she is..."

His mother's gleeful mask crumbled with...he wasn't sure what it was. "Yeah. She is."

Shikaku shuddered as he remembered vividly the feeling of emptiness. "What...wrong with her? Her chakra I mean."

"She doesn't have any, for what we can tell. She was born like that."

No chakra. No chakra  _at all_. It didn't felt real, although it did make sense with what he had felt. What was alive had chakra. What had chakra was alive.

 _Unnatural_ , Shikaku frowned to himself. It wasn't fair to her, nor to him. She had been nice. Good. And the deers had liked her. Which became even more weirder, in the light of his mother's revelations. Shouldn't they feel even more uncomfortable with her than Shikaku had?

How odd. And how dangerous, as they both understood. No wonder they kept her existence classified and under ANBU constant surveillance. Although in the light of those new informations, her guard had acted incredibly lenient towards his charge. And why the 'sama'? Perhaps the girl came from a noble family, why might explain how she was allowed to roam by herself and not be trapped into some lab to be experimented on.

Konoha had a reputation of high ethics for a Hidden Village, but they weren't  _that_ nice.

"She's a Senju," Shikako droped seemingly out of somewhere, and visibly enjoyed her son's gasp. Shikaku hated when she did that, like she could read his mind or something.

"A  _what_?" How could have one of the strongest clans have given birth to a living chakra blackhole?

It didn't made sense. Nothing about _her_ did. Although it did explained the 'sama' and the treatment of favor. She did looked a bit like the terrifying Tsunade-sama now that he thought about it.

"Indeed," his mother didn't bothered telling him to keep his mouth shut on the matter.

Shikaku knew better after all.

.

.

Rather naively, he had assumed their meeting would remain to the stade of one time fluke never to be reproduced.

He had assumed wrong.

"Then Mitsuko went to the river, and asked to talk to the Fisher King. The river told her to bring them three presents, one for the River, one for the Queen and one for King. Mitsuko replied...ow, that tickles!" Hikari rose her head from her book and pushed Daiki's stout away with a delighed giggle.

So. The girl was lying in the grass on her stomach, a colorful book open between her elbows, sporadically kicking her feet in the air. And currently reading a fairy tail out loud for sake of the herd of deers surrounding her. Shikaku recognized Kimie, Daiki's mother guarding her left flank, and Kaede on her right. Moriko watched carefully the book as if trying to read for herself, and Daiki was all but sprawled on the girl's back.

No ANBU visible, but that didn't meant much. If ANBU didn't wanted to be seen, then a nine year old Academy student wouldn't be the one to spot them, otherwise they might as well give up their mask and retire to cultivate potatoes. Or so his mother kept on grumbling.

Okay. Good. That was the perfect opportunity he had been hoping for. Shikaku could do this. He would go speak to her, and apologize properly. Easy. No big deal.

Anytime now.

"Not now Owl, I'm not done reading," Hikari said louder without bothering to raise her head from her book, before visibly startling and turning in his general direction. "Oh Nara-san, I'm sorry!"

Shikaku blinked. There were  _no way in hell_  she could have seen him where he was spying on her like a creeper. Could she...sense his presence somehow?

Time to face the music. "Hikari-sama," he greeted her as he stepped out of the shadows.

She struggled to get back on her feet, only to admit defait to Daiki's persistance, and compromized to sit crosslegged with the fawn's head on her lap. Shikaku tried very hard not to find the scene cute.

"Hello Nara-san," she smiled sheepishly, as her hand found her way to the back of her head. "Aren't you supposed to be at school today?"

Had she been keeping track of his schedule or what? "Got released early today," and didn't get a detention for sleeping in class, a exploit that deserved a reward for itself.

"Oh. Right. I'm sorry, I said I wouldn't bother you again..."

So that was the reason of her apology. "Actually I'm kinda thankful. The deers had been sulking at me lately." Not a lie, if by sulking he really meant passively agressive, or actively agressive in old Moriko's case.

Hikari laughed openly at his discumfiture. To fair, Shikaku would laugh too, and more mockingly than she did. "Those darlings? I can scarcely believe it."

"Believe it. They like you way better than me," he drawled out honestly.

"They might be the only ones," she replied cheerfully without thinking, only to immediatly regret the jab, as her redding cheeks betrayed her.

The latent guilt he had been carrying since that day came back to bite his belly. He did not let it stop him. Naras did not wallow in their problems, they  _solve_  them with the better investissment/result ratio they could get.

He sat down next to her. Close enought to touch, but with Kaede acting as a buffer between them. At his feet, Moriko sent him a warning glance that screamt 'don't mess up again, boy,  _or else_.' Geez, thanks for the vote of confidence, he wasn't  _that_  insensitive, alright.

"Please let me apologize for my conduct last time," Shikaku made to a point to look at her right in the eyes. "I was...startled, which is not a excuse, but didn't meant to offent you in any way."

Her sky-blue eyes grew enormous with surprise and embarassment. Shikaku kept his smirk of self-congratulation to himself. "There is no need for apologies Nara-san! If anything I'm the one who intruded on your lands. And I know I can be...upsetting to shinobi."

Understatement of the year, at the very least. 'Upsetting' indeed. The feeling of wrongness had yet to ease from his mind. He ignored it.

"I'm Shikaku, Hikari-sama," he chose to say instead. "Nara-san is my mother." And all his uncles and aunts and older cousins.

"Actually, since your mother is head of clan, she would be Nara-sama," Hikari argued with clear amusement. "I, however, am not head of anything, so I invite you to drop the sama."

Oh, if she wanted to play that game. Let it not be said Nara would get bested on a mind joust unless they felt like it. "I was merely following my superior's lead."

She snorted. "Owl is stubborn as a mule. His lead is not be followed, Shikaku-san."

"That's not I've been taught at the Academy,  _Hikari-sama_ " he retorted, trying to stay dignified while Kaede began to sniff his hair. Annoying females.

She leant towards him with a grin full of malice, while taking the precaution to stay out of contact, probably for his sake. "Because you're the kind to do only what you've been taught, is that right?"

Damn, did she had to read him like the open book still at her feet? Bad enough when his mother did so, but a six years old he had met twice? If he hadn't several years under his belt to severe his own pride, the sheer humiliation might have killed him. Thankfully Shikaku had no been born  _Uchiha_. Pride was an overrated quality for shinobi anyway.

"Doing otherwise would be too troublesome."

He had not expected the success of his own retort, as Hikari bowed over Daiki's back in hilarity. "Too  _troublesome_ , he says," the blond almost cried tears of laugher. "You're really something, Shikaku-san."

That was just rich coming from  _her._  "Just your typical Nara, Hikari-san," Shikaku conceded to her.

"Ah!" she cheered. "Better, but I'm only six-years old, I'm sure you have noticed."

What a joke. If she was an actual six years old, he would eat his his shogi board. She spoke like an adult, kept up with him better than his classmates of three years her elder ever did. Shikaku would not call her Hikari-chan.

"You call me Shikaku-san, Hikari _-san_ ," he chose to smirk instead of bringing back her weirdness to the discussion again. "What am I, your venerable elder?"

At the innocent beam she nearly blinded him with, he realised too late he had just offer her the lance to impale him with. "Well, you  _do_  have three years over me, Shikaku- _oji-san_. It's like, a third of my lifespan!"

She did have a point, dammit. Although. "You're very well informed, Hikari-san..."

Her hand froze in the middle of a stroke of Daiki's fur, and she smiled with visible uncomfort. "Oh. Abooout that...Owl might have a run a minimal background research on you..."

No kidding. His eyes narrowed as he leant over a sleepy Kaede's back, intrigued by her embarassment. Clearly the 'invasion of his privacy' meant more to her than to him. Shikaku, raised among a clan of shinobi that put the importance of knowlegde above everything else understood perfectly the need to stay informed. Actually, he might have felt offended if the ANBU  _hadn't_ done a basic research on him. "Minimal, hm?"

"Oh you know," she eyed him with casual flippancy. "Birth certificate, medical check up, academic records,  _completely normal things_."

Shikaku snorted as she rolled her eyes, and didn't even flinch at her ANBU's timely arrival. Progress.

"Hikari-sama," Owl didn't managed to keep his disapproval from leaking out of the usual ANBU monocord tone. "Even though you don't seem to care about your own safety doesn't meant  _we_  don't."

Hikari let herself be collected into Owl's arms once again. Shikaku had to try very hard not to laugh out loud at her pretty scowl. "If by we you mean paranoid bastards..."

Owl had been that close to scream 'language!" Shikaku could tell from his sudden stiffness. The Nara rose from the ground and adressed a smirk at the Senju carried bride-style. "That's the definition of a shinobi, princess."

"Princess? I'm afraid you're mistaken, Shikaku-san," Hikari managed the exploit to stay dignified despite her position and stared down at him. "I am a  _Queen_."

For half a second, Shikaku completely believed her.

.

.

"I'll go feed the babes," Shikaku, being the doting brother he was, made a move to take the bottle out of his sister's hands.

Normally Shikane would rejoice at the chance to ditch her domestic duties to her brother. This time however, the annoying brat pushed his arm away and narrowed her eyes with growing suspicion. "Okay, that's weird. What's going on with your lazy ass lately?"

That was the problem with growing in a Nara household. They always knew when something fishy was happening under their nose. Fortunately, most of the time they were too lazy to do something about it. Unfortunatly Shikane had gotten more than her fair share on the 'nosiness' gene pool, and let most the 'lazy ass' ones to him. "Geez, Nee-san, last time I try to be helpful..."

"Please," she interrupted him, her hands on her hips, acting like the ungrateful brat she had always been. "You never offer to help me. Most of the time you're too lazy to help  _yourself_. So, what are you hidding, little brother?"

And they wondered why he loathed interacting with hysterical females? He silently called his mother for reinforcement. Nara Shikako, the traitor, ignored him and grinned at her daughter. Didn't anyone have any respect for what was  _classified_ anymore?

Typical. He had to do everything himself. "Fine, you got me," he deadpanned. "I'm meeting with my contact from Kumo. They promised me that once I helped them conquer Konoha I could sleep all day forever. I've hidden the intel inside the bottle."

Shikako almost choked on her tea. His father, on the hand, didn't seem very impressed. "Oh really? That's disappointing," Masato mused out loud over the newspapers, because like every other dad in the Element Nations, he red the newspaper with his coffee in the morning. "I was hoping you were secretly meeting with a girl."

Shikaku did not wince. Nope. Not at all. Just like his mother was not silently dying of laugher. "What's wrong with this family?"

"Sage, there is, isn't it?" Shikane couldn't seem to choose between disgust and glee. "My little brother is meeting with a  _girl_."

"There is no  _girl_!" he protested, which technically belonged to the lying category. There was a girl, of the classifed kind. But not a  _gir_ l like they were all implying. Ugh.

"Is that what you were doing with your girls Masato?" his mother smiled sweetly, in an entirely unhelpful manner. "Meeting them clandestinaly in the middle of the forest?"

"You would know, darling," her husband grinned slyly. Shikaku would have been just fine never knowing that.

Shikane agreed with him, for once. "You're disgusting," she growled before reaching for her brother's arm and proceeded to drag him out of their house.

"Hey, what are you doing, you crazy woman," he tried weakly to remove his limb from her grip. Not much hope on that front, once she had worked herself up into a  _mood_ , his sister would rather dislocate his shoulder before she let him go.

"Go feed the babes of course," his lunatic relative gratified her victim with a vicious grin.

"And we need to be two for that since..?"

"Since you've been meeting with your girlfriend, apparently."

"Nee-san,  _there is no girl_!"

And there wasn't. No suspicious nins, nor hypothetical girlfriends lurking on the herd's grazing ground. Shikane went as far as to check kunoichi-style.

And Shikaku was  _not_  disappointed. Nope. Not at all.

"Can we go now?" he sighed condescendently once he was done feeding Daiki and the other fawns, and his sister had tried all the sensing jutsu she knew, without success.

"Yeah, fine, you got me," his sister grumbled like a sore loser, which Shikaku hardly heard at all.

Daiki turned insistantly his head to the younger Nara's right. Shikaku barely caught a glimpse of gold before  _she_  disappeared into the trees. His heart skipped a beat. What the hell was she playing at?

"What again?" Shikane stared at the spot both human and fawn had turned to.

Shikaku put on his best childish frown and prepared himself for the show. "I already told you,  _nothing_."

.

.

Surprisingly, Hikari turned out to be a perfectly decent cloud-watching partner. From what he had gathered from previous interactions, Shikaku would have assumed she wouldn't be able to keep the chitchat down. Yet she contented herself to glaze aimlessly without saying a word at the sky just fine, with Kimie snorting quietly to her side.

Which was good, obviously. Coming from anyone else, Shikaku would have been overjoyed of the opportunity, in his own Nara way. But.

If he lied on the ground watching the sky, and she did no speak, the fact that he could not feel her became even more bothersome. He did not see her, or hear her, or feel her, therefore  _she wasn't there_. How was he supposed to sleep when he kept worrying about stuff like 'what if she had been kidnapped' or 'maybe she had stopped breathing, smoothered under several pounds of nosy deers and I didn't notice'.

It was a problem.

After the hundredth time or so of turning his head to the side to check that yes, she was still lying next to him, her gold curls spread on the grass, he decided to take the matter between his own hands.

"So, how to do managed to escape your ANBU babysitter?" he asked casually, as if he hadn't spend the last half hour silently freaking out and peeking at her every two minutes like a creeper.

"Babysitter," Hikari giggled, likely amusing herself with Owl's hypothetical indignation. "It's like you don't have faith in my ninja skills at all, Shika-kun."

She had taken to the surname since 'well, I can't call you Shikaku-san anymore to spare your precious feelings' and 'I'm not going to say Shikaku-kun. There's too many Ku, it's ridiculous." Shikaku let her have her way because it would be way too troublesome to fight her over for such trivial matters.

In exchange, he got to call her 'my queen', with a surplus of sarcastic grovelling. It hadn't embarrassed her nearly as much as he had hoped, but by then the surname had stuck. Somehow, he felt like he had gotten the short end of the stick.

"I had no idea you had one of those, my queen."

"Why, because of my  _disability_?" she joked lightly of her condition, and he ended up cringing. "Yet I am here, aren't I?"

Yes. She was. She was right there. If Shikaku moved his arm, he might even touch her. He kept his hand firmly to his side.

"They don't know how to track someone like me," she continued, oblivious of his inner crisis. "Their usual technics doesn't work."

"There are other ways to track someone than chakra," Shikaku argued. "Like sent." And...stuff.

"Sure," she nodded. "But the last time they put an Inuzuka on my watch, I pulverized his nose with perfume. And summons are my buddies."

The Nara shuddered. "You're evil."

She cackled with fake malveolance, Kimie half-waking at the sudden sound. "That I am! Mwahaha, fear my wrath, innocent ANBU of Konoha!"

"And ridiculous," he rolled his eyes, though she couldn't see it.

"You asked for it. Wanna hear the secret of my success?"

No. Secrets were too troublesome. And Shikaku already spent way much time trying to figure out hers. Without much success on his part, to be honest.

"I'm all ears," he deadpanned with false casualness, as if he wasn't hanging to her lips like a starving man.

Kimie whined in vain protestation while the blond nuisance leant dangerously close of said ear. Shikaku had to fought over his every muscles. Not. To. Move. Hikari had grown rather lax with her own personal bundaries lately.

A single curl of gold briefly graced his cheek, and he stopped breathing for a second.

"The trees help me hide."

Shikaku blinked. She had not said 'I hide in the trees' but 'the trees help me hide.'

...the fuck?

"That's...very nice of them?" he tried, uncertained to what he was expected to say. They hadn't covered that part on 'The Nara Men Manual To Survive Women's Madness And Effectively Perpetuate The Line'. If not for that life-saving piece of wisdom, the Nara would probaby have been wiped out decades ago.

"Hm. It is," she fell back on her initial position and kept her eyes on the uncovered sky, Kimie sighing blissfully at the return of her beloved human's hand on her head.

Shikaku took a cautious peek to her side. She didn't look angry, just...disappointed. As if Shikaku had failed a test he hadn't been aware of.

The Nara had failed hundreds of test before without giving a care, yet the thought displeased him. Mostly because he knew he could have won those without breaking a sweat had he wanted to. But here he had no idea what she expected of him.

It was  _frustrating_.

"But your ANBU should know where to find you by now?" he casually changed the subject. Unless Hikari had several other hidding places. With other friends to hang out with. If she did, Shikaku decidly didn't care.

Jealousy was way too troublesome for Shikaku to deal with.

"Of course they do, silly!" she laughed at him, before waving vaguely towards the trees. "Hedgehog is lurking somewhere over there. She always let me have a bit of fun before dragging me back to Ghost Town. She's a big softie, deep, deep down."

Shikaku vowed to never again make any kind of derogative comment on ANBU agents from now on. You never knew when they were listening. Better safe than sorry.

.

.

"Matsuda-sensei," Shikaku waited until the end of the class to pester his homeroom teacher.

Since the Nara had refrained from voluntarily engaging his teachers in any way for the last four years he had been sleeping off on Konoha Academy's benches, Shikaku couldn't find it within himself to get upset at Matsuda-sensei's expression of pure shock.

It was damn hilarous though.

"Yes, Shikaku-kun?" the chuunin tried to contain his surprise, with the air of someone who wanted so badly to threw a 'Kai' but didn't know how to do so without offending the other party. Shikaku had been there. "Can I help you?"

He couldn't believe he was actually doing this. If his clan disowned him for the sake of their 'You Shall Not Seek For More Work' sacred moto, he was so blaming Senju Fucking Hikari. "Sensei, you're a stealth specialist, right?"

"How do you...nevermind," Matsuda-sensei pinched the bridge of his nose and valiantly did not whined 'damned Nara', as most of Shikaku's interlocutors tended to at that point. "Yes I am. Or I used to be anyway."

Before a Kiri-nin had exploded his leg to several gory pieces, that was it. "You should have seen the other guy," the chunnin had joked when one of his student had tactlessly asked about his wooden prothesis, and then proceeded to collectively kick their asses, just in case they had any doubt left regarding his abilities.

Shikaku had little love for teachers, especially when they actively tried to get him to do things, but he did have have a certain admiration for the former stealth specialist. For a given value of 'admiration'. The man had  _style_.

"I was hoping you might share some tips," he leant againt his desk, careful to maintain his usual mask of sheer boredom. He wouldn't want to shake his teacher's worldview irreparably after all. "About how to track someone without using chakra."

"Without using chakra? That's an interesting question," Matsuda-sensei said while he really meant 'this conversation is getting so weird, suspiciously weird.' "Why would need to know such a thing, Shikaku-kun?"

He didn't. What he needed however would be to know how to track _someone_   _without chakra_. That was the closest he could get without directly entering the dangerously classified territory.

"Nevermind," he mumbled before making a move to leave.

The chuunin held him back with a manic grin, as Shikaku had guessed. Matsuda-sensei belonged to that category of over-achievers who couldn't let a challenge go unanswered. "You stay right here, young man."

The Nara stoically endured the next hour full of his teacher enthusiastically ranting about 'scent', 'mud steps' and 'broken branches' and of course the 'Capital Importance Of Intel Gathering.' And then asked for more, because the constant exposure to Hikari's very special brand of madness had ruined his self-preservation skills.

Those things he had to do.

"And how get undetected?" Matsuda-sensei grinned to wildly at the question Shikaku feared he had broken his face.

Shikaku came home four hours late and his pack full with five books on stealth, infiltration and chakra suppression. Shikane almost slamed the door to his face.

"Mom," his loving sister cried out very dramatically. "Someone  _broke_  Shikaku! Do something!"

Someone had broken Shikaku alright. And someone would bite back their smirk.

Senju Hikari wouldn't know what hit her.

.

.

Senju Hikari knew what hit her. Like she always did. In restropect Shikaku had been stupid to think he might managed something her ANBU handlers never could.

"I give up," he let himself fall to the ground after another failed attempt to catch her off-guard. "I can't believe you always see me coming."

She sat next to him, her face still rosy after laughing her ass off for five whole minutes. "And I can't believe you actually  _studied_. I don't recognize you anymore, Nara Shikaku."

"That's what my sister said. You should have seen my teacher's face."

"Oh no, stop making me laugh, my belly hurts too much," she had the audacity to complain, her head aligned next to his on the grass. "If it makes you feel better, Wolf is even worse than you are. I think he's a tracker, so I'm offensive to his personal skills or something."

Shikaku felt for Wolf's pain, on a deep, personal level. "Wait, you mean there are feelings behind the mask, my queen? Shocking."

"Ah! You should have seen them when they started. So repressed, it ain't healthy," she snorted.

Shinobi lifestyle wasn't a healthy one, far from it, as she very well knew. Not for the first time, Shikaku wondered what Hikari's life would have been like had she been born 'normal'. She probably would have gone to the Academy, promised to a glorious kunoichi carrier, as one of the last two Shodaime's direct descendants. If she hadn't get killed or abducted before of course.

He liked to think they would have been friend anyway, though realistically speaking nothing was less sure. Cheerful Hikari would have bonded with popular Inoichi or soft-hearted Choza before she paid any attention to the lazy ass asleep in the back of the class.

"You shouldn't take it personally," Hikari chirped, unbelievably smug. "I'm getting reaaaally good at this chakra thing."

Shikaku missed a breath. Then forced himself to keep cool. Like he hadn't been seeking for such an opportunity for months now. "Like a sensor?"

He had spent more hours than he cared to admit trying to figure that mystery out. Every single pore of her body rejected the very idea of chakra, so how exactly could she  _feel_  it the way a sensor would? It made no sense.

"A sensor? I guess?" Hikari mused out loud. "I don't really know, I can just feel it? I meant, at first I couldn't distinguish one chakra source from another, but now I can recognize some I'm used too."

Chakra source? Was that how Hikari saw them? "I guess you're  _used to me_ now?"

"Oh Shikaku. I can spot you anywhere in the village," she giggled, until she took notice of his frozen expression. "Wait, that sounded creepy right? I meant it in a completely non-stalkerish kind of way!"

Anywhere. In. The. Village. Sometimes Shikaku couldn't find her when she stood  _right next to_ him and he was a fucking shinobi. How was that  _fair_? "You're not joking."

"Err, no?" Hikari smiled anxiously. "Are you...angry?"

Yes. No. Perhaps. "What does it feel like?" he asked instead, unwilling to ponder too much on his confusing feelings.

"What, chakra? I wouldn't know how to explain it. How would you explain colors to someone who has never seen them?"

"I've seen chakra before." The glowing green of a medic-nin's hands working his magic. The soft blue on his father's imbued shuriken.

"Precisely. I don't see, I feel," Hikari stared straight at him with one of her mysterious grins.

"How does my chakra feel like then, my queen?" Shikaku wasn't entirely sure to want to know, but whatever.

Hikari took her sweet time to formulate her answer. "Subtle."

.

.

"So this is your boy," a blond kunoichi Shikaku recognized as  _The_  Senju Tsunade took a slip of tea as she gratified him of an unimpressed glance.

If she made any kind of cliché remark like 'thought he'd be taller' Shikaku was so out of here, Senju Tsunade or not.

"You have a mean glare, kid," she smirked instead, with a hint of appreciation. "Sure he's one of yours, Shikako-san? I have never seen a Nara spawn so invested before."

"Since I vaguely remember seven long hours of labor, I would tend to say I'm pretty sure he is indeed  _my_ spawn, Tsunade-sama," his mother replied drily over her cup of tea, with no consideration whatsover for the fact said spawn was standing right there.

One day, Nara Shikako would snicker over her damn tea one time to many, and she would choke on it. Which meant Shikane would become chief in her stead, and wasn't that an awful prospect to consider.

"Tsunade-sama," Shikaku fell back to his usual blank persona as he greeted the Hokage's former student with a lazy bow. "What an honour."

Tsunade nodded at him, more amused than offended while Shikako gestured him to sit next to her.

"So kiddo, I've heard you're all chummy with my cute little cousin," the First Hokage grand-daughter went for the kill without more pleasantries.

Shikaku blinked. To be honest, it had not occured to him that Hikari _did_  have some relatives still alive and kicking left. Relatives like Senju Tsunade, or Uzumaki Mito, now that he thought about it. She always seemed so lonely despite her apparent cheerfulness, not to mention her habit to call the enornous Senju Compound 'Ghost Town'.

Shikaku might have assumed wrongly she lived alone with only gloomy ANBUs to keep her company. But to be fair, a rising star like Tsunade couldn't be home that often.

"We're friends," he replied rather evasively, indifferent under his mother's sharp knowing glance.

"Then I hope you stay very considerate of her special condition. Some people are not as understanding as you are, Nara Shikaku-kun,"

He frowned at her false flippancy. What could she possibly mean by that? Of course he knew other kages would jump at the opportunity of a defenseless Senju, waiting to be stolen, despite her... defficiencies.  _Especially_  because of that even, for the possible experiments on someone like Hikari were endless. Unless...she meant dangers from the  _inside_.

He met her steel-like golden orbs without flailing. "I would never dream to put Hikari-sama in any danger."

The Senju princess held his resolved stare for long seconds, before broking their silent contest with a satisfied grin. "Now I see why she's so fond of you, brat! It's always 'Shika-kun' this and 'Shika-kun' that nowadays."

Do not blush, Shikaku ordered to himself. Do. Not. Blush. The crazy females were only waiting for any sign of weakness to eat him alive.

"I'll guess you'll have to do," Tsunade added with a thoughtful frown.

.  
.

"Do you think he might let me ride on his back?" Hikari mused out loud, her hand patting Daisuke's neck. "I'm not that heavy."

If by 'not that heavy', she really meant light as a feather, then yes, they could agree on that account. Shikaku sometimes wondered if they bothered feeding her at all. That observation might ou might not be related to his new quirk to bring Akimichi's leftovers each time they met. Choza watched him weirdly now, but it was worth it to get the satisfaction to stuff food in her skinny mouth.

"Am I supposed to act as if we both didn't already know all our deers would jump happily from a cliff if you asked them to?" he said instead, arching his back against the tree he was currently fake-sleeping against.

The youngest Senju laughed at that, since for some obscure reasons she appeared to enjoy his dry sense of humor. "You're exaggerating."

He really, really wasn't. Katsuyu, the Tsunade's slug summon standing on Hikari's shoulder seemed to think so as well as they both exchanged one look of long-suffering.

As far as summons went, Shikaku did like the slug. If not exactly the prettiest summon to look at, they had been nothing but perfectly polite and a reasonable individual,  _unlike some people._ Hikari had begun to show up with the summon faithfully guarding her shoulder since Tsunade's return.

"Nee-sama worries otherwise!" Hikari had rolled her eyes after Katsuyu had introduced herself. "I hope you don't mind."

Shikaku hadn't mind. And even he  _had_  mind, he would sooner cut off his own arm than make a comment on Tsunade's choice of summons to the ridiculously strong kunoichi. Self-amputation would probably hurt less than whatever treatment the medic-nin would inflict upon him.

"Hey Hikari," the Nara called her out. "For how long is your cousin back?"

"Who knows?" she shruggled like it meant little to her. Shikaku wasn't fooled. "Nee-sama is a very demanded medic-nin after all."

And war lurked at their door. The shadows beneath his mother's eyes grew heavier each day that passed.

"Hm. And who do you live with when she's away?"

"Careful, Shika-kun. I might start to think you actually  _care_ ," Hikari replied lightly with a wink. "Well, there is Takada-san, and Sayori-san. And Owl, Hog and Wolfie."

So two elderly servants and a rotation of three ANBU. Hardly made up for an actual family.

"What about Mito-sama?" Shikaku asked with false casualness.

Katusyu sent him what could be translated as a warning glance in slug body-language. Hikari turned her back on him under the pretence of paying extra-attention to a slighty fretting Daisuke. "I don't see Mito-oba-sama very often."

Why not? Uzumaki Mito, unlike her grand-daughter hardly ever left the Compound anymore. With the depressing lack of Senjus nowadays, the last of them should have been pretty close. "No?"

"Mm. Mito-sama has some important seals on her person. Too risky to have someone like myself too close," Hikari replied neutrally, without bothering to add false cheerfulness.

Important seals? Oh.  _That_  seal. To endanger the prison holding the Kyuubi would be quite disastrous indeed. Hikari had told him jutsu didn't work on her, but to able to mess with a sealing master from Uzushio by accident...Shikaku hated the part of him that was already considering how such an unpredictable ability could be use in their advantage.

"And could you? Mess with seals?" Shikaku let his head back fall back on the trunk, staring longingly at the sky through the ceiling of leaves.

"Oh yes." A pause, and then. "Why don't  _you_  try, oh great Nara?"

Shikaku narrowed his eyes at her smirking face. "What."

"You've been training with this shadowy stuff, right? Try it on me," the troublesome vixen had the gall the wink at him. "Catch me if you can."

"Seems like a drag," as Katsuyu let out a pained "Hikari-sama..."

"You don't even have to move! Come on, indulge me," she rose from the ground, to Daiki's loud displeasure.

What a pain. But Shikaku couldn't deny his curiousity at seeing her abilities for himself. From a completely professionnal point of view, obviously. "Wolf won't behead me for attack his charge?"

Hikari rolled her eyes. "Wolfie is back to the regular ANBU now. Punishement over. And Owl won't attack you. And if he does, don't worry, I'll protect your lazy ass!"

"My hero," he drawled sarcastically, as the annoying Senju began to dance in sunlight, provocating in her impatience, but still mindful to avoid stepping on the deers laying at her feet. "Oh fine."

A shot of adrenaline run under his skin as his hands drew the familiar justsu. Chakra pulsed from his feet, and his shadow leapt lazily over the grass.

"Oooh," Hikari cooed with a glint of fascination in her blue eyes. "Very pretty."

Sure, trust her to qualify a notoriously fatal jutsu the Nara had murdered thousands of enemy with of  _pretty_. Shikaku held back his breath as his shadow finally caught Hikari's.

Nothing. His shadow overlapped hers, without catching anything. Even when she gingerly jumped into his shadow, giggling as she danced in the middle of his struggling jutsu, he couldn't feel her at all. As if she wasn't there in the first place. He should be used to the feeling, yet his panic took him entirely by surprise.

Before he could question his stupid, reckless impulse, Shikaku had jumped into his feet and leapt towards his friend. Hikari gasped, bemused at his unusual forwardness when he reached out for her hand. Pink, soft, warm. Alive.

Hikari was there. She was  _real_ , not a fragment of Shikaku's imagination. Real.

"Nara-san. Please let Hikari-sama go."

Shikaku jumped from his own skin at Owl's sudden proximity, and released Hikari's hand as if he had been burnt. "I...please accept my apologies."

"Hm, it's fine," Hikari was staring still pensively at her own hand, where Shikaku had groped her without her consent, without a simple warning, dammit. And then she broke into a malicious grin. "Aw, Shika-kun if you wanted to hug you should have said so! I give great cuddles, isn't that right Owl?"

Shikaku barely had the time to process the amount of information thrown in his lap before the ANBU had Hikari thrown on his shoulder like a mocking bag of potatoes, Katsuyu still hanging on her neck with an expression of long suffering at her humans' antics. "We're leaving now."

"Bye Shika-kun! Let's hug it out next time!" he heard before they got swallowed into the forest.

Shikaku stared at his hand, still tingling with a strange feeling he didn't wished to ponder about too closely.

Damn.

.

.

"I am very offended, Nara," Inoichi announced as he dropped on the bench next to Shikaku, Chouza following closely behind.

"Must be a Thursday then," he snickered without moving his head from its resting place, namely their table in the Academy.

Chouza shook his head amusingly as Inoichi kept going without paying attention to the Nara. "And why are you offended Inoichi my friend?" the blond said in a doubious approximation of Shikaku's voice, and then in his usual obnoxious tone. "Well Shikaku, one of my best friend didn't bothered to tell me he had gotten a  _girlfriend_  so..."

Not this shit again. Shikaku sighed and burried his head further into his crossed arms, hoping that Inoichi would disappear if he wished it hard enough.

"And I had to hear it from  _Shikane_ , can you believe it?" the Yamanaka added with a dramactic sight. "Shikane! She was so  _smug_..."

"And you believed her because..?" Shikaku interrupted the blond's rant when he admitted to himself the problem wasn't going away on its own, not with Chouza prefering to sit back and enjoy the show instead of being the voice of reason and, Kami forbid, actually useful.

That, at least, had the effect to stop the Inoichi's Words Train of Indignation. "Why would she lie about you being  _cool_?"

Which was a good point. If Shikaku had been any other boy. " She's a pain in the ass." And she had made a life purpose to embarrass him as often as possible. Big Sister prerogatives, she called it.

"So you  _don't_ have a girlfriend?" Inoichi narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

Shikaku rolled his eyes and sent a mental appology to Hikari. "Girls have cooties."

Which earned him a slap from the Aburame girl sitting behind them, but had the virtue to get Inoichi off his back.

.

.

" _What_  are cooties anyway?" Hikari asked with a wicked smile once she was done laughing her ass off at Shikaku's misfortune and his poor choices in friends.

"I have no clue."

And then she was shaking with laughter again at his tone full of pure pain, her hand tugging his hair in her hilarity.

"Aw," Shikaku turned his head to sent his so-called friend an unimpressed glare.

"Sorry!" She didn't sounded very sorry, but turned her attention back to the task at hand. A task she had insisted on, despite his protests. By that point, Shikaku should admit that his body did not belonged to him anymore, and should Hikari want his hair braided, then his hair would be braided.

"But your hair is so _pretty_ , Shika-kun! Very braidable!" she had the audacity to use the Fawn Eyes on him, and to pretend 'braidable' was an actual word.

Hikari had not been joking about her 'hugging it out' campaign. Once it had been made clear Shikaku was not, as a matter of fact, disgusted by her contact, she had made a point to touch him at least once every time they saw each other. Light touches at first, her hand on her arm, her leg againt his, her head on his shoulder, then she moved on to full cuddling. Shikaku himself wasn't that much into physical affection, but he could not deny her that simple pleasure. Not when he felt her raw touch-starvation melt away at the attention. Beside, it wasn't like having her snuggled at his side where he could feel her was such a pain anyway.

Except when Hikari got into her head his hair was fair braiding-material. As usual, Shikaku just had to suck it up like a man. Even if he had no idea how to explain his sudden change of heart about hair dress. Even if Shikane would definitely never it go when her little brother showed up with wild flowers weaven in his hair. Even if his hair was not, and would never be, under no circumstances,  _pretty_.

"You done?" he groaned at a harder tug on his scalp.

"Almost!" his tormentor chirped happily, before leaning towards his ear. "You're aware a summon is following you?"

At that point Shikaku wasn't even surprised a civilian could spot what an experimented Jonnin might miss. "What a drag... You can come out now, Riku."

A moment of stillness, before a tiny blurr of fur run from its hidden spot to their meeting point. The deers stared with vague interest at the mouse standing on his back legs in front of the two human children, wearing a small Konoha Hitai-ate around his neck, a sword at his belt and a equally tiny chuunin vest.

"Greetings, Hikari-sama, Shikaku-san" the summon mouse bowed rather pretentiously.

Shikaku peaked a glance at his friend. She had actual stars twirling in her eyes. He closed his eyes in resignation for the impeding disaster.

"Ohmygosh you're so  _cute_!"

"I am not CUTE!" Riku hissed angrily, before deflating more quickly than Shikaku would have thought it possible. "I mean, this mouse is a fierce warrior, not a pet. No offense, milady."

Shikaku blinked slowly in surprise. Riku had been his father's most faithful compagnion for years now, and he had never seen him act so... _deferential,_ to anyone. The temperamental summon had no shame whatsover to call Nara Masato the worst idiot to ever walk on the Elemental Nations to his face, no matter who else might be present. And he positively loathed to be underestimated because of his size. People had ended up in the hospital, if not outright dead for less than calling Riku 'cute'. Shikaku's father thought his summon's suceptibility was a terribly amusing flaw of caracter, especially for a infiltation specialist.

Point, Shikaku had never seen Riku acting so chill to a stranger. Ever.

Also... _milady_? Riku still refered to Skikaku's father as 'That Idiot', his mother 'The Deer woman', and he'd never called Shikaku anything but 'the second brat', Shikane being 'the first brat'. And only now that he was with Hikari he got to be upgraded to his actual name, while he had known the mouse since he was born.

What was up with Hikari and beasts? They all fell over their own legs/fins/hoofs trying to lick her boots. Except for Katsuyu, who thankfully had proven herself to cool to swoon.

"Oh no, it is I who meant no offense. Please accept my most sincere apologies," Hikari replied, still smiling behind her hand.

"Why were you snooping around anyway?" Shikaku cut in the middle of the avalanche of pleasantries.

Hikari pouted at his rudeness, while the mouse sent him a familiar death glare that promised later retribution. "The Id...your most esteemed Father is back from his mission. He wants to see you."

So soon? Shikaku's father had not been expected back to Konoha until next week. "Oh, I hope he is alright!" the Senju voiced his worries out loud with sincere concern.

"Of course, milady!" Riku visibly preened at the attention. "I, the great Riku, was with him after all!

Shikaku valliantly fought the urge to roll his eyes as Hikari giggled behind her hand. "Guess I better go see what the old man wants. Later, my queen."

Shikaku did not miss Riku's flinch at the endorsement, before the mouse graced Hikari with another florish bow. "It had been an honor meeting you, Hikari-sama."

"Sure, likewise," Hikari smiled back, a bit uncomfortable at the show of deference. "Bye guys!"

Uncomfortable, but not surprised, Shikaku thought as they made their way back to his house, with Riku reverting back to his usual semi-hostile persona and outright refusing to answer his questions.

How...odd.

"Nice hair by the way," Riku smirked before disappearing in a puff as Shikaku climbed on tne engawa.

Shikaku turned pale when one second later his mother caught sight of him and dissolved into cackling laughter over her tea. He had completely forgotten about Hikari's 'Friendship Braid', and the tiny bastard had waited the last minute to remind him.

.

.

"Where summons come from? Maa, can't you keep your philosophical questions for your Academy teachers?" Nara Masato hid a yawn behind his hand before crumbling on the table, undignified like the truborn Nara he wasn't. "Your old man is an idiot, ya know."

Shikaku didn't bothered replying to such a bold lie. Nara Shikako would never have tolerated an imbecile as her husband, not even to strenghten their bond with the Sarutobi Clan.

"Don't look at me like that, kiddo," Masato mumbled in his barb. "I don't have a damned clue. My contract stipulates my summons are in no way obligated to answer questions regarding their Clan, or other Summon Clan."

"Interesting," Shikaku perked up. "Is that common to all Summoning contracts?"

"How would I know? Riku would skin me alive with his damn sword if I enquired about other Summons," the stealth specialist whined. "I'm not even allowed to  _look_. It's not cheating if I'm just looking right?"

"Don't let Mom hear you say that, old man," Shikaku replied distractly, mentally listing which shinobi he could bother about their Summoning contract without risking to create a minor diplomatic incident.

"Meh, Shikako would understand the virtue of appreciating from afar. She's a cool one, your Mom," Shikaku's father grinned foolishly, sharing way more intel than his son ever wished to know about his parent's relasionship. "So, Kaku, how have you been doing?"

Shikaku stopped wondering if the information he could get from Senju Tsunade would be worth the risk to focus on his father, still spread ungracefully on their table. They were hardly seeing him nowadays, as the number of missions he was required to go grew alongside the tensions beetween Konoha, Suna, Iwa and Ame. "Fine. Mom and Nee-san are more unbearable when you're not here, amazingly."

Masato chukled. "Ehe, I bet. Women amiright? And your girl?"

"I have no idea of whom you may refer," Shikaku lied dutifully.

"Sure you don't. The Academy?"

"Boring. All those motivated kids who wants to  _do_  things. What a drag."

"You're such a Nara," Masato grinned happily, with a glimpse a sadness on the edge of his smile. "You're a great kid, Shikaku. Don't grow up too fast, yeah?"

Shikaku was not a idiot. He could tell war was brewing at their door, feeding of decades of hatred, frustation and greed. And no children had the luxary to stay children in middle of wars, especially not the children of glorified mercenaries. But he could give his worn-out father one small lie.

"Being an adult is too troublesome."

"Don't tell me about it."

.

.

Four days later, the Second Shinobi War had been declared.


	2. Interlude I: about the tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A retrospective telling on Hikari's birth from outsiders' POV

I. The one who grew the seed

.

.

"Never fall in love with a shinobi. Men only brings trouble, and shinobi are the worst of them," Ami's mother had said to her daughter many times. Granted, it sounded more like "Neve' fall in luv wis wose bastaaaards," since she could only be bothered to impart her life-management advices when deep in her cups, but Ami had enough experience with drunk talk to get the message.

Ami's mother had been a kunoichi for ten years, before she got injured so badly she got kicked out the Chuunin Corps, so Ami could only assumed she knew what she was talking about. To be fair, Ami hadn't  _planned_  to fall in love with a shinobi. She just been fooling around with one the Senju boys, and her mother had never said anything about fooling around.

Ami's best friend however did said something about keeping guys who could find a clit without a map, and before Ami knew it she had found herself into a two-years long relationship with what Konoha had closest of royalty, a small house in the Senju compound and a ring at her finger.

Also, very pregnant.

The funniest thing would be that Ami had only realized her stupid heart had been won over when her fiance's teammate came home with a blood-stained hitai-ate and sorrow in her eyes. She had stared at the sharp pieces of her foolish love spread into her empty house and thought 'Oh, Mother.'

Too bad her mother had been too long dead to come say 'told you so' at Ami. She would have just loved that.

.

.

II. The one who touched the roots

.

.

Kaoru, fifty years old and a thirty years of career in the Konoha medic corps had seen it all. Of course every fifty years old thought so, even more so fifty years old shinobi, but Kaori  _really_  had seen it all. She had seen men slaughter each other, women slaughter each other, children slaughter each other. She had seen a village built itself over decades of inimity, and not collapse when its two leaders finally slaughtered each other. She had seen life and death, and the thin edge beetween them, she had seen love, hate, betrayal. She had seen more guts than anyone could wish too, and she had assist mothers give birth to countless babies.

Kaoru had been there and she'd seen it all,  _and that baby had been dead_. Undoubtly so. It had no chakra, therefore it was dead. No matter how its gruesome skin glowed of a bright pink, how steadly its heart throbbed beneath tiny ribs, how vigorously it had cried.

What had chakra was alive, what was alive had chakra. The child had been born dead.

"A new kekkei genkai perhaps?" the Hokage wondered, his hands tucked under his head pensively. "A hidding ability? What about the mother?"

"Kurogane Ami. Civilian. Mother was a kunoichi with no clan affiliation, Father unkown. She never showed any particular talent, but it's not impossible, I suppose." Uzumaki Mito replied clinically, the de facto leader of the Senju clan since Tobirama's death. Mostly because the actual heir was only sixteen and not interested into clan politics and no one dared to say a Jinchuuriki of Mito's caliber what to do.

"No, you don't understand," Kaoru shook her head. "It's no cloaking its chakra, it doesn't have any! When I tried to run a check on it, it  _absorbed_ my chakra. None of my jutsu worked!"

"I would appreciate if you stopped refering to my grand-daughter as an  _it_ , Nohara Kaoru-san," Uzumaki Mito glared at Kaoru coldly.

In any other circumstances, it would have been enough to silence Kaoru, who never liked conflict in first place, even more so with angry Clan Heads keeping furious Bijuu as pets. But in this case, the thing Uzumaki called a grand-daughter terrified her more than all Jinchuuriki combined.

"I've seen anything like it. It's  _unatural_!"

"That's  _enough_ , Nohara-san," Sarutobi frowned at her. "Until we know more about Hikari-chan's...abilities, I declare complete secrecy on the matter. Mito-sama, find someone trustworthy to take care of the child. You cannot approach her until we figure out wether or not she's dangerous to your seal. Nohara-san, I expect you to give a weekly check-up to Senju Hikari. I will also assign an ANBU guard for her "

Kaoru held back a protest at the thought of having to interact with  _it_  on a weekly basis. Mito-sama had no such problem to give the Hokage a piece of her mind. "This is ridiculous. You can't keep me away from my granddaughter Saru. And trust this woman with her."

"Yes, I can."

Even Uzumaki Mito had to bow to the Hokage's decision, Kaoru thought vindically. Everyone had to submit to his will.

Long live the Hokage.

.

.

III. The one who groomed the sappling

.

.

Sayori took one thorough look at the baby resting in her arms. She could scarcely recognize Hatori-sama at all in her round face, pink pouting lips and sky blue eyes.

"Mito-sama. You promised."

Sayori had been serving the Senju Clan for fifty years. She had been taken in at five years old, after rogue Uchihas had destroyed her village and murdered her entire family. Although a simple civilian with no talent whatsover for the shinobi art, Sayori understood her duty to the clan. She had served faithfully to her entire capacity for decades.

And now, all the children Sayori had seen grow up were dead, except for Tsunade and her brother Nawaki. This servant was tired of raising the offspring of dead men only to send them to their own end. After Hatori's death, Mito-sama had promised she would never have to go through the same ordeal again.

And yet here she was, asking Sayori to care for another orphan-born child of the Clan.

"Yes, I know, Sayori-san," Mito sighed from the other side of the room. "I understand how cruel it is of me to ask such a thing of you. But I have no one else to turn to. I cannot raise that child myself, and there is no one I would trust more with the task than yourself."

Sayori didn't reply. She turned her attention back to the infant sucking silently at her thumb. Even Sayori, who had next to no chakra herself could feel the oddness, like an itch tugging distantly at her senses.

"This one will never become a kunoichi," Mito-sama added after a few minutes of contemplation. "She will never know the darkness..."

"Of course she will. She is Senju. Darkness is in her blood."

Mito flinched at the rebuttal. Once upon a time, Sayori would never have dared to interruped so boldly a Senju, especially Mito-sama. Time truly washed everyting away. Time, and the bitterness of loss. Sayori had loved all these children as if they had been hers. They  _had_  been hers. "Why not ask that ANBU of yours to deal with her?"

"Child-raising is hardly a strong point of Owl," the Uzumaki chukled without mirth.

Hikari blurped happily. And Sayori, who truly had learn nothing after all, knew she would do her duty. As always.

.

.

IV. The one who longed for the leaves

.

.

Over the years, Mito had learnt to stop paying attention to the concentration of angst sealed inside of her. The seal that chained the vicious beast to her guts was less than perfect, but the Uzumaki dared anyone to do a better job on the battlefield without any preparation. The first years after she had turned herself into a living vessel, the sudden rises of loathing had been overwhelming. Nowadays however, the Kyuubi could hardly faze Mito in his worst days. Hatred, hatred, and even more hatred, it was quite tedious after a while.

She had spent more time in Konoha than her birth village, but Mito was a kunoichi of Uzushio still. She had a stormy sea in her blood, and salt over her skin. She had seen more frightening than a petty child lashing out.

But every once in a while, Mito got to taste something else than the usual loathing. A spark of interest among the tide of rentless agression.

Curiosity. How odd.

"What is it?" Mito stared at the giant fox, ungracefully sprawled in his cage.

Sage, how she hated to come here. The stench alone never failed to bring nausea at the egde of her lips.

"My illustrous jailer, what an honor," the Kyuubi eventually deigned to aknowledge her presence. He was in a sarcastic mood today. A barely noticable change from his usual temper.

"Don't play coy," Mito frowned disapprovingly, urging herself not to snap at his provocations. She had managed not to explode with frustration after  _years_  of negociation with Uchihas, one fat fox throwing a fit couldn't even compare. "You know something about my granddaughter."

"Which one?" the Bijuu grinned with malice. "The useless one or the dead ones?"

His favorite taunt, to remind her constantly how she kept on failing her own family. As if Mito could ever forget. "You know of whom I speak."

"Ah, the cursed one then," Kyuubi rolled over, his tails waving through the toxic air. "You might not want to get too attached to that one, Mito."

...Cursed? What could he possibly meant by that? Mito knew better than to trust her prisoner with  _anything_ , but still...Kyuubi had no reason to lie to her on the matter, it wouldn't help him break the seal. "Cursed? By what?"

"Eh, by  _who_  you mean? Don't know. Don't care," the fox shruggled his enormous shoulders with an expression of casual indifference. "But one way or another, your cub had been tainted by a god. She  _reeks_ of it."

"...How?" Mito pondered out loud. Not that she believed him on principle, but it couldn't hurt to hear what the beast had to say on the matter. "Hikari was born as she is, and her mother hadn't left the Compound since..."

"Oh come on Uzumaki," Kyuubi interrupted her with a mocking bark. "Even you can't be that gullible. Surely you can recognize ancient eyes when you see them, old hag."

He was lying of course. He did that nowadays, whispering poisonous untruths and bittersweets lies. Aiming to crack her defense with doubts since he had understood screaming wouldn't get him anywhere.

Curses didn't existed. Hikari wasn't any more cursed than Mito herself.

 _Ancient eyes_ , Kyuubi taunted her from within. " _Ancient eyes_."

.

.

V. The one who climbed on the branches

.

.

Captain Owl was something of a legend among the ANBU forces, the kind that got reverently whispered about during long stake-out nights. At least two hundreds A and S-ranked missions to his name, and more than ten years of service in a corps where surviving was an exploit by itself. But most of all, no one knew what had become of him after he disappeared five years ago without a goodbye, before Mitsuha joined. Well, at least two persons knew but Mitsuha hardly imagined herself questioning the ANBU commander or the Hokage regarding the former captain's whereabouts.

Nonetheless, this mystery had fed by itself ANBU's rumors mill for five years. Some believed that the captain had defected, others that he was in a long-term infiltration. Most just stared unimpressingly and said "dead."

Personally, Mitsuka liked to believe Owl had been been sold to be the exotic playtoy of a spoilt princess in some minor country. She just never expected to be half-right.

"Owl..taicho?" Mitsuha repeated in what she hoped was her standard 'cool and collected ANBU agent' voice, and not an excited fangirl squeal.

"That's correct," the Hokage smiled pleasantly. "Owl had been assigned to the protection of a... _special_  citizen of Konoha. I've been looking for an operative for him to share this mission with. His charge never leaves Konoha, therefore I think this mission is perfectly adapted to your needs, Hedgehog."

The thing was, Mitsuha  _loved_ working as ANBU. She wouldn't pretend the life of glorified murderer was anything but unhealthy and twisted, but she lived for the thrill of tracking, of the close dance with anhilation. Bit of an adrenaline junkie, she would admit. Hedgehog was  _good_  at she did, as in really,  _really_  good.

She didn't wanted to stop being ANBU. However, life had decided otherwise when her brother died last month of pneumonia, of all things, leaving his kid of four years old an orphan. With her mother departed from birth complications, little Yoshino had no one else to take her in. Mitsuha was a bit of an asshole, but not bad enough to abandon her only remaining family member to rot for themselves while she had fun chasing missing-nin all over Fire Country and murdering rich people in their bed.

Therefore she had asked for a reaffectation to regular,  _boring_  Jonnin Corps when the ANBU commander had sent her to the Hokage's office. Who had handed over to her a perfect mission allowing her to both stay in ANBU  _and_  take care of the brat. Also, work with _Owl-taicho_.

"I accept this mission, Hokage-sama!" Mitsuha bowed a bit to enthustically, but she couldn't be bothered to care right now. "I am thankful for your comprehension, and won't disappoint you."

"Aha, don't thank me too soon, Hedgehog-kun," the Hokage chuckled omniously. "This mission won't be as easy as it seems. Anyway, you're expected tomorrow at seven am to the Senju Compound. Owl will brief you the details there. Dismissed."

And that was how Mitsuha found herself the next morning, hanging awkwardly on top of a oak with no clue regarding her mission, pondering over the merits of waiting until her captain deigned to fetch her versus the risks of breaking into the oldest Compound of Konoha.

And then the fairy child appeared out of nowhere.

"Hello," the pretty monster flashed its teeth from the branch above Mitsuha's. "Are you my new pet friend?"

Mitsuha did  _not_  screamed. Barely yelped. At least that was her story and she was sticking to it.


	3. Part II: the girl and the shadows

Some days, the bad days, Shikaku wanted nothing more than to strangle his comrades to death. Just to spare nature the trouble to do the deed herself, since there was no way such idiots would last long in this cruel, merciless circus. In the mean time he might as well finally get some peace and quiet, and spared himself another foolish lecture on how 'cool' being a shinobi was.

The shinobi life wasn't cool, and it wasn't awesome. It was death, and loss and murder and sacrifice and puking and spreading guts in the mud like bitches for the sake of the village. Most of all, it was  _short_.

Shikaku could understand civilians would get confused about the real nature of their future job. That was what the propaganda was about after all. But even children from clans, who should have known better, let themselves caught in the hype of jutsu and awesome moves and 'let's save a princess or two' missions.

Hikari, however. Hikari, despite having being isolated into a golden cocoon her entire life, despite growing up with the knowledge she shall never become a kunoichi,  _got it_. She understood perfectly that being promoted to Chuunin in wartime meant nothing good. Unlike genins, chuunins were considered big enough to serve as cannon folders. Even precious clan heirs like Shikane.

"Ah, your big sister? The one who came here trying to bust your 'girlfriend'," the Senju mused out loud. "Chunnin so soon..."

"She's a pain in my ass, but if she gets herself killed I'll have to be clan head in her stead..."

"You're allowed to express worry for your sister's wellbeing, Shikaku-san," she frowned at him, which combined to the annoyingly formal 'Skikaku-san' meant she was pissed at him. "No one is going to take away your man card."

"Whatever," he avoided her insistant glare to focus on the slow motion of clouds drifting in the sky, unbothered and carefree. They, at least, never judged him on his emotional constipation issues. "What's gotten you so tense anyway, my queen?"

Hikari usually behaved like a ball of cheerfulness and positive thinking against the adversity, especially when confronted to Shikaku's pessimistic attitude. But today not even Daiki's antics could win a smile from her. It was surpringly...upsetting.

"Ah, how high your opinion is of me! Isn't war a reason good enough not to feel like celebrating?" she laughed bitterly without answering the question.

Shikaku shruggled. If she didn't feel like telling him, he didn't mind waiting. He would find out eventually if it was important, he always did. "Sure."

After a few minutes of awkward silence, she leant down on the grass with him. Her leg against his, her thumb running on his arm and a waterfall of gold on green. He pointed out a slug-shaped cloud casually sliding over their head, leaving a trail of morve-like vapor in its passage. She gratified his efforts with a tiny smile.

His patience got rewarded when Hikari eventually mumbled: "Hog is gone."

Hedghog was an operative ANBU, and ANBU just didn't _left_. "...gone?"

"Hm," she nodded along. "Called back to active duty for the war effort."

Shikaku hadn't realized the kunoichi hadn't been in active duty before, but he supposed internationnal open conflict got precedence over watching one civilian girl. No matter the potential danger the girl presented for herself and for others. "And Owl?"

"Still here. Lurking over there," Hikari gestured towards the trees. "He's been with me forever, you know. Don't know what I would do without his constant nagging."

He could relate. He wouldn't know what to do without Shikane on his back either. His mocking, pushing, poking,  _caring_  hellion of a sister.

Shikaku hoped this nonsense would be over soon. He hoped the other side didn't have Shikanes and Owls and Hikaris to be lost too.

.

.

Graduation day passed without a hitch, and before Shikaku knew it he found himself with a brand new hitai-ate, two teammates to worry about and a jonnin-sensei to nag him about his lazy habits.

"And here I hoped to get at last one pretty girl in my team! You guys ruin  _everything_!" Inoichi whined, putting his head on his hands dramatically.

"Girls are troublesome," Shikaku reminded his friend while Chouza patted his blond head comfortingly. "Don't worry about it Inoichi, you're pretty enough for the rest of us!"

Shikaku gave an admirative glance to the beaming redhead. People never gave the Akimichi enough credit, because this guy sure had hidden depth of trolling wrapped in that friendly smile. Hikari and Chouza would get along like a house on fire.

" _Not_ what I meant, Chou," Inoichi screeched, his ponytail wingling furiously on his back. "But accurate, I guess."

"Oh, I'm sorry if I disappoint you, Yamanaka-kun," a feminine voice interrupted Inoichi's pity party.

Shikaku blinked to the newcomer, and his brain went all "err' for a second. The woman standing in their empty classroom could only be qualified of stunning, objectively speaking. Rich brown tresses falling on her back, round-shaped eyes the color of honey, pouty pink lips over umblemished olive skin. She was wearing a frankly outrageous skirt and a meshed shirt under her jonnin vest who seemed to have for only purpose to put her enormous rack in display.

In one word:  _unrealistic_. What kind of jonnin had skin like that? Also, how was she supposed to fight with her mile worth of breast?

"Hello everyone," the jonnin calmy introduced herself when the three boys failed to reply. "Please forgive me for my tardiness, I'm your Jonnin-sensei, Sarutobi Yuuki. You may call me Yuuki-sensei."

That, finally, had the merit to jerk the newly-appointed genin out of their hot chick-induced trance.

"Hi sensei," Inoichi greeted her with a dazzled grin meanwhile Chouza mumbled "no trouble at all" to Yuuki-sensei's feet. Which, by the way, where clad into pink sandals.

 _Pink_. What the hell.

"Well, why don't you guys introduce yourself, hum?" she flashed her lashes at her students, and Shikaku just snapped.

"Hey,  _Yuuki-sensei_ , you mind showing us some ID?" he drawled, smiling apathically. "Since Matsuda-sensei isn't there to confirm your identity..."

The jonnin blinked at him, and then barked a laugh to Inoichi's scandalized expression. "You're a sharp one, aintcha? Sure, have a look."

Shikaku grasped the id she handed over without further ado. All the three gasped at the picture of the terrifying looking man on the card. With another laugh, 'Yuuki-sensei' puffed away to let place to a bull-shaped shinobi, all facial scars and bulging muscles, not a single feature likely to be qualified of pretty in sight.

"Nice instinct, Nara. What ticked you off?" the jonnin nodded at him with minor approval.

Inoichi gasped at their sensei with an incredibly fetching expression of betrayal. You could almost taste the salt of crushing disappointment in his teary eyes. For his part, Chouza had withdrawn himself from the traumatic situation under a neutral face. Yuuki-sensei was clearly feeding off their despair, despite his polite expression. Shikaku had spent enough time with his mother to recognize hidden sadism when he was the victim of it.

"Looked to good to be true," Shikaku shruggled. "The bonnet F was a bit too much."

"Yes, that was the point. You're the son of Masato, right?" the man who had be his father's cousin to some degree glanced at him thoughfully.

"Yep." Shikaku drawled, turning his head towards the window longingly. As if a jonnin of Sarutobi's skills wouldn't already know that.

"Interesting. Let's start over, then. My name is Sarutobi Yuuki. I specialize in tracking and retravial. You're the second gennin team I've been asked to teach. As of now, I'm not very impressed. You two failed to see the oblivious," their lovely sensei glared at Inoichi and Choza before turning towards a yawning Shikaku, "and you called out on the bluff a potential ennemy without any intelligence of his actual strenght, and chose not to try to alert your fellow Konoha-nin or even to warn your teammates. In resume, in a real life situation, you'd be all dead and the village unaware of the danger."

Harsh. Shikaku squeezed the spark of anger at the merciless analysis (he, at least, had noticed the bluff, there were gennin for a grand total of two hours, they were  _ten years old_ , for fuck's sake...) and beared it stoically. Inoichi, thankfully, stayed silent as well.

"Let me be clear to you. This is not a game, and being a child is not a option for you anymore. We are at  _war,_  and as long as you keep this hitai-ate on your forehead, you are a soldier. If you can't handle it, then give up. There is no shame in that, even for clan-born brats like you."

None of them said a word to take the opportunity offered. All clans had members who chose the civilian life despite their upbringing. There was, as Yuuki-sensei pointed out, no shame in that, officially at least. But Choza was his Clan's heir, and Inoichi yearned to prove himself to his family. And Shikaku? Honestly, the shinobi life was a drag but he could not conceive to choose another path. If his family or friends died while he should have been there to help, he would never forgive himself.

Yuuki-sensei took their silence as a sign of endorsement. "Great. For now on, we are Team Four."

.

.

Back when she was still a wee ninja with an untouched hitae-ate on her arm, Shikane had spent countless hours complaining about the D-rank missions she had to go through with her 'braindead teammates'. Looked like genins at war times had other priorities, since Shikaku hadn't had to weed a single garden or chase around demonic pets. He had however bitten the dust enough times to differenciate the soil from various Training grounds from taste alone, because Yuuki-sensei was a sadistic bastard who enjoyed trashing his students to the pulp. For their  _education_.

"If you're not suffering, you're not learning," their beloved teacher had declared with that dishearting still face of his after Inoichi had complained about his bruises having bruises of their own.

"He's the worst," Shikaku sighed in conclusion. "He could at least pretend to like us. Isn't that what professors are supposed to do?"

"Uh-hu," Hikari nodded along non-commitally. "So you like him."

What. Shikaku rolled over on his left side so he could sent an unimpressed glare to her without rising up. He ignored the pulsing pain on his leg at the sudden movement, a gift from Yuuki-sensei's thorough lessons. "Did you even listen to a single word of what I said?"

"Of course! I always listen to you!" his younger friend had the gall to glow contently at him. "You said Yuuki-sensei was a realistic, thorough, dedicated teacher..."

"I said he was a workholic hell-driver of a demon, what's wrong with your hearing."

"But also unbiaised, observant and attentive..." Hikari kept counting on her fingers his teacher's imaginative qualities.

"Yeah, so he can make every day our very own customized nightmare..."

"So, in one word... _competent_!" Hikari clapped her hands theatrically. "Stop lying. You. Like. Him."

"I changed my mind,  _you_ 're the worst," Shikaku grumbled as he rolled back on the ground.

"Sure. I know you need to express your manly angst, so I'll let you think you had the last word."

"The worst," he turned his head to the right so she wouldn't be able to see the telling tug on his lips.

Hikari snorted without replying. Shikaku fell back on his usual cloud-glazing habit. He could almost forget about the chaos of the rest of world when they were like this. Shikaku, Hikari, the clouds, and a herd of amorous deers drooling on her lap. Also, one or two ANBU sulking in the woods. With this quiet atmosphere lightened up by Hikari's teasing smile, Shikaku's brain felt like it could slow down a bit from its usual furious race over time.

"Aren't you bored?" he mumbled out of nowhere.

Sometimes, he forgot how young Hikari actually was. Only seven years old. Shikaku knew thirteen years old who couldn't stand to stay still for two seconds. And Hikari wasn't like Shikaku, born dead inside with a longing for the tranquility of the last breath. The Senju child burned of a flame stronger than anyone he knew, civilian or not. Tainted people like Shikaku were not friends with people like Hikari unless the later had no other choices. He knew better than to assume they would have been so close if she had been born without her anomaly.

Granted, she did have close to zero interaction with other children, but surely she couldn't be satisfied listening to him complain and do nothing.

"Hm?" the blond perked up at the noise. "You said something?"

"Nothing," Shikaku grumbled, embarrassed. "I was thinking maybe we could go somewhere else."

"Eeeeeh! Seriously? You always complain about what a pain it is to walk here!" Hikari gasped with sincere shock. He wasn't  _that bad_ , alright. "And now you want to  _do_  stuff?"

"Nevermind. Just thought you might be bored or something, but whatever," Shikaku said in completely non-sulky way.

"Aaaw, you were  _worried_! That's so sweet!" Hikari giggled delightfully before leaping straight over his stomach, like the devious beast she was.

"Get off me you weirdo," he hissed under the chukling mass of a devil. Old hare Noriko gratified the pile of human children with a sneez of supreme condescension.

"Okay!" Hikari finally removed herself from his heavely injured person. "Where are we going? Oooh, I know, let's go on top of Nidaime-sama's head, the view is just  _great_!"

How, exactly, would she knew that? Here Shikaku had thought she had outgrown her game of losing her ANBU to wander around the village. It was all fun and giggles until she got herself killed by an overzealous shinobi. Sometimes Shikaku simply forgot that Hikari existed outside the Nara forest. Outside of him. That behind the sunny and golden reflection laid another Hikari, one than Shikaku could barely scrap the surface of. A Hikari shadows had no claim to, and so neither did he.

"Oh, stop making that face," her enthustiam barely deflated in front of his brooding frown. "I promise no one ever see me! I'm sneaky like a true ninja!"

"I remember," Shikaku made the wise choice not to fight with her on the matter. Men should know how to pick which battles were worth risking the warth of women for. "How about we go to my house instead?"

Hikari stopped mid-ranting, her eyes widening with emotion. "Really?" she whispered with a small voice. Too small, barely audible at all. Hikari's voice had no been made for the unassuming tone of demure women.

And now Shikaku felt like dirt for not inviting her sooner. He should have known what it would meant for her to go to her friend's house. Like she was a normal kid.

"Yeah," he avoided looking to closely at her hopeful smile, embarrassed as he grabbed her hand. "Let's go."

He kept on expecting Owl to come snatch his wandering princess away, but the ANBU remained out of the sight. Anyway, it should be fine. The Head Clan House stood at the edge of the forest, and with Shikane and his father gone (at war, blood on their hands and screams all over their mouth), no one lived there nowadays aside from Shikaku and the occasionnal ghost of his mother. He barely got to see her, busy as she was organizing the best ways to slaughter people with minimal cost for Konoha. And when he did see her, she wasn't quite there anyway.

"Oh," Hikari breathed when they caught sight of his house. "It's nice."

"I guess," Shikaku sat down on the porch and removed his sandals.

Hikari did the same, freeing her stocked feet from her small boots. She had strange fashion senses, refusing to go anywhere without tights or pants covering her legs, regardless of the weather. Likewise, she favored covered shoes to the usual sandals. 'I don't go around flashing my toes, mister of loose virtue' the Senju had snorted haughtily when he had called out on her odd whims.

She was so freaking  _weird_ , he thought fondly.

"Please come in," Shikaku opened the door for her. To the surprise of his teachers, his mother did managed to pour some manners in her only son.

"Thanks for having me," Hikari replied with a glowing smile.

"It's not as big as your house," Shikaku put his hands in pockets, slouching against the couch while his friend explored the house with those curious eyes of hers, flickering as they tried to commit everything to memory at once.

"Ah, but it's such a nice home!" she counterracted with a florish. "Yosh, let's do it!"

"Do what," Shikaku frowned warily.

She replied by sliding straight into him with a delighted giggle. "Sock-sliding of course! Catch me if you can, Nara!"

And the golden hellion took off, sliding happily over the wood with her stocked feet, barely avoiding crashing into the library. "Hey, come back here!"

After fifteen minutes of demented chase through his house, Shikaku had won one bruise on his knee, a broken tea set to hide from his mother and the dubvious pleasure of removing a splinter from Hikari's foot.

He couldn't remember the last time he had fun like that.

.

.

Uzushio had fallen.

The words pourred over Konoha like a cloud of acid in an already bitter forest. Shikaku didn't truly understand what it meant until the few refugees who managed to escape the attack arrived in Konoha. Sun-kissed strangers with bright hair stumbling beneath the giant entrance doors. Worn out clothes over worn out hearts, their eyes either empty with choc, or full of ressentment.

Uzushio had come to Konoha's aid in a war they didn't believe in, and now Uzushio was dead, its last members reduced to begging. Shikaku couldn't even begin to imagine the depth of their despair.

And with them, Shikane. Her and her team had been sent as renfort to Uzushio, only to come back with a few dozens of traumatized allies. Minus a teammate.

"Hatori took an kunai in the head trying to protect me," his sister explained with forced detachment as she quietly sat down. "Tamaki hurt his arm but at least he lived."

Shikane was never quiet. She raged and laughed and pestered loudly, perpetually pushing the world to aknowledge her presence. It was a drag, but that was how Shikane was. Now she was quiet. Still as the shadows Nara covered themselves into, their shallows arms spread all over her neck, her eyes, her voice.

"It was terrible, Kaku," she whispered to her tea, her hands steady and her eyes devoid of their usual fire. "The sound of a city burning down. The smell of flesh burnt to a crisp. All those people, trapped inside..."

Shikane had turned fifteen two weeks ago, and already her bright, brilliant, terrible mind conspired against her. When she didn't cried herself to sleep, she screamed. She cut her hair off, those brown tresses she had always been so proud of because long hair were a liability and blood a pain to remove from it. She flinched at the smallest noise, ready to lash out at the mere glimpse of a threat. She stared often at her scarred hands, as if she couldn't recognize them anymore.

He knew the symptoms. To save herself and the life of her comrads, the Nara heir had had no other choice than to step in too far inside the darkness. And so, leaking through the cracks, the shadows had made their realm out of her misery.

"They always talk about blood on hands," Shikane mumbled to herself, having forgotten about Shikaku at her side. "But the worst is gut. It smells awful too."

No one was truly suited for war, but some people coped better than others. And his sister wasn't one of those people.

(Shikaku would be though. As sneaky as his father, as ruthless as his mother. The kind of monster hiding in the darkness and feeding of weaknesses parents warned their children about.

He didn't care much about ruining his hands with gut and blood.)

Shikane left for Amegakure a week later. The shadows followed.

.

.

The hand stopped mid-air, a wooden pawn tangling from sly fingers.

"Ah," Hikari squinted at the board thoughfully. "I already lost, didn't I?"

She had, two moves ago. And if Shikaku had wished to end their game sooner, she would have fifteen minutes ago. He had spent so much time loosing to his mother he had almost forgotten the feeling of being in control of the game.

"Hehe, I guess I'm not very good after all," she grinned sheepishly, unbothered by her loss.

Just as she had predicted when Shikaku had set the shogi board between them, Hikari had no talent to the game. Not that she was stupid, but she had no patience nor a tactical mind. A straightforward, honest mind who prefered jumping in the fray to devious approaches.

In the surface at least.

"Are you sure you have never played before?" Shikaku frowned at the board.

"Yes? You just spent half an hour explaining the rules to me, remember?" Hikari blinked. "Why?"

"Another tactical game then?" he insisted.

Something dark flashed throught his friend's eyes. She shruggled it off quickly. "I've watched Takada-san play Go a few times, but I haven't played myself."

Clearly, Hikari had been a beginner at shogi, and her strategy pretty unsubtle. But sometimes during their game, she had used...odd moves. Strange patterns Shikaku hadn't predicated at all, that fit neither the mindset of a novice nor of a consumed player.

As if she had been playing to another game entirely. A game similar enough to stimulate regular patterns of thought, but different in the end.

"Just a feeling," Shikaku shruggled. "Another game?"

She groaned. "Please no. Have some mercy, would you?"

He smirk at her long-suffering pout. "Yeah, yeah. I'll make some tea."

"Make it a bucket for me," his guest shouted unecessarily at him as he dragged himself to the kitchen. "I need to drink for forget my defeat!"

"What do you put in your tea, idiot?" Shikaku chuckled to himself.

He quite liked to process of preparing the breverage. Shikane loathed the stiffening tradiction of the tea ceremony, but himself found peace in the predictability.

Hikari had been staring at the forest when he put a steaming cup in front of her. Probably thinking over whatever had been bothering her all evening. "Ah, thanks Shika-kun. You make quite the lovely housewife."

"Shut your mouth and drink your damn tea," he grumbled without any real bite, slouching on the other side of the table.

She took a sip of her steaming tea, humming a noise of appreciation. "Hey Shikaku..."

"What."

Her eyes narrowed in. Shikaku had the feeling the following conversation would not be pleasant. "You've been working harder lately, haven't you?"

"I guess," he drawled, staring at ceiling impassively. "You're the one saying I should take training more seriously."

"Don't take me for an idiot, if you please. That's not I meant, and you know it."

No, of course not. She wasn't talking about the extra-session on taijutsu Shikaku had submitted himself to, of the hours spent perfecting his aim or of the genjutsu Yuuki-sensei persisted in trying to trick him into.

Hikari spoke of the darkness he was learning to dance with when his mother wasn't home to lecture him, of the shadows he was taming under his will. Or maybe they were taming him, who could tell?

In theory, the shadow technics of the Nara Clan could be taught to anyone with enough chakra. It required no bloodline, only chakra control and strenght of will. Over the years many had tried to copy their technics and failed, their mind lost to the darkness. That was the thing with bending shadows, you couldn't use them without being used yourself, without loosing little pieces of yourself in the process. A transaction at its most primitive form, harsh and unforgiving. Others might have learnt their lessons and stayed away from their demons, but not Naras. Because, at the end of the day, what terrified them enthralled their sharp, foolish souls twice as much.

And so Naras had learned to live on the edge of the abyss, close enough to touch and mend the void with their mind, but far enough not get eaten by it. They knew the abyss wouldn't be content to simply stare back. It would swallow you at the slightest occasion. If you were lucky, it might spit back a drooling mess to lock up in a asylum.

Which was why teaching of the shadow technics were strictly regulated. No children of the clan were allowed to train their shadow binding jutsu on their own, without proper supervision. Even adults avoided playing with the darkness alone. You never knew when you might need help pulling yourself out of the void. Their close alliance with a mind-reading clan was no mere coincidence.

But with the war raging, and his mother too busy to supervise him, Shikaku didn't have the luxury to be careful. He needed to get stronger, and he needed it  _now_.

"How do you know?" he eventually asked, before the oblivious hit him. "Eh. I get it. Has my chakra changed so much?"

"A bit," she sighed. "Shika-kun,  _what are you doing to yourself_?"

What did it felt like now for her? Tainted? Corrupted? Rotten? Shikaku certainly felt like it these days. But his uselessness to his family and his village disgusted him more than learning how strangle a man or pierce through his heart with a flick of his hand ever would. The shadows did not scared him enough anymore, not even his own.

Watching his sister fall into insanity did.

"I've just been focusing on the Clan's technics lately," Shikaku shruggled it off, aware Hikari wouldn't be fooled by his flippancy. "I'm planning to try for the Chuunin exam next month."

"What?" she gasped, her rosy cheeks paling into a bony white. "So soon?  _Why_?"

It wasn't that soon. Shikaku had been a genin for more than a year already. But jonin-sensei tried to keep their genins out of the exams as much as possible. Especially the precious clans' children as the Ino-shika-cho infamous combo. Getting promoted meant being send to the front, a fresh batch of wide-eyed rookies to be used as cannon folder.

"I'm useless as I am," he stared impassively. "I need to become stronger."

"By getting yourself  _killed_..!"

"I'm not expecting you to understand," his mouth kept going on autopilot. Biting and snarling like a cornered beast. " _Civilian_."

The slap should not have taken him by surprise. Shikaku had been training to become a killer since his first steps. His sadistic teacher enjoyed nothing more than beating the crap of his students. His very own name was tainted with the stench of their world. By now, violence might as well be his second language. He should have seen it coming.

His head jerked to the side with the blunt of the slap. His cheek  _burnt_ , both from the hit and the shame. It hurt like a bitch.

(a part of him, the same who admired Yuuki-sensei's special brand of pedagogy, swooned with pride. The little pest had used her  _nails_.)

"You think I don't know what it's like to feel useless and helpless when the people you love are fighting for their life? How  _dare_  you? Look at me Shikaku!"

He blinked at his agressor. Hikari was practically shaking with cold, frightening rage. The friendly blue of her eyes had frozen into sharp metal. He had never seen her like that. A shiver ran through his spine. Surprise, shock, shame, anger, all wrapped into one, with a spark of interest.

(oh hello, fellow predator. I hadn't seen you there. You look like you would use my skin as a carpet, and I'm kind of liking it.)

"You think that's what Shikane-san wants? Or your parents?" the verbal slaughtering kept on going and going, merciless and unwavering. "You looks like you're dead on your feet!"

Of course she would notice. Shikaku wrapped his bruised ankles under tape, hid his twitching fingers with large sleeves and burried the dark circles beneath his exhausted eyes under Shikane's concealer. His teacher hadn't spared him more than a neutral glance, and if his teammates had noted any changes they had made no mention of it to him.

"You're not going to help anyone like this," Hikari shook her head. Her anger had morphed into resignation. And resignation was worse. At least when she screamed at him, he knew she cared. "I'm not watching you destroy yourself. I cannot."

She climbed on her feet. Stared at Shikaku, waiting for him to say something, anything. He couldn't. The shadows got his tongue. And his limbs and his heart and his brain, woven inside chakra trails like voracious vines.

Hikari left. In her absence, the light wavered. And the abyss grinned a mouth full of terrifying nothing.

.

.

After...After. Shikaku wasn't too sure about after. His thoughts scattered radomly like chakra on a battlefild. His mind kept itself functional enough thanks to sheer stubborness, but only barely. He walked inside a confusing maze full of hazy dreams and dying wildfires, without the comforting warmth of his light to guid him home.

He wasn't sure how many days passed before his mother finally went home. He wasn't sure of anything that happened between the moment Hikari left and the moment Shikako walked back into his life.

His mother stepped inside the kitchen, took one tired glance at Shikaku and the scrolls spread on the floor around him, and she _knew_. Her mouth, already weighted down at the corners, froze into a cutting line of fury. Her grey eyes stormed with a cold anger Shikaku, from his eleven years of existance, couldn't even begin to understand.

"You stupid, foolish boy," she clamped her fists so hard her nails burried themselves in her flesh. Despite the very real danger he had gotten himself into, Shikaku couldn't stray his eyes from the cressents of red carved inside his mother's palms. "Fucking ANBU was fucking right. Training. Now."

The shadows nested behind his temples shuddered in anticipation. From fear or thrill, he had no clue.

"Training," Shikaky blinked, confused. He looked at the windows. The sky had long been swallowed by the night.

"You heard me.  _Now_ ," she gritted her teeth before storming out in their courtyard without bothering to check wether or not he intented to follow.

The Head of Nara Clan had spoken, and so he had to obey. Shikaku made a valiant attempt to gather both his thoughts and limbs into order. The shadows fought him all steps of the way, throbbing feverishly at the end of his numb fingers and skirting at the edge of his hazy mind. Bitches, all of them.

"You look pathetic," his mother coldly assessed over his shaking tremors, his glassy iris and the grey patches festering on his skin.

"Shuddup," Shikaku weakly bit back. "You don't..."

He never got to finish his sentence, which was just as well because he had no idea where that thought was headed. His mother lunged to him, kunai in hand and chakra tingling on her hand. Except she wasn't his mother anymore. She was the Head of Nara Clan, and she was _furious_.

Shadows crept from the ground, from the sky, from her glinting kunai and grim mouth. At night Naras were kings, and Shikako the empress that ruled over the darkness. Shikaku lept to the side, cursing under his breathe his lack of control. A sneaky shade caught of his ankle, and he fell ungracefully on the ground.

"Release them," The Head ordered as her servants covered his body.

"I can't!" he snarled through the pain.

She spoke as if Shikaku was the one holding the shadows.  _They_  held him. He had trapped himself into their clutches like the worst kind of idiot. The foolish, narcissic kind.

"Of course you can. You just don't want to."

Shikaku was outright sobbing now, darkness leeking through his tears and moans. He couldn't let go, he couldn't. He needed the shadows. How else was he supposed to save Shikane and his father? It didn't mattered if his body broke at the strain, if his mind shattered and scattered in the wind, if his soul rotted between the careless clutches of the abyss.

This son of the Naras was lazy, cynical and cold-hearted, but he was also  _loyal_.

"Shikaku, my foolish child," the Head shook her head with unexpected softness. "Let it go now."

Shikaku stared at the stricken face of his mother.

He let it go.

.

.

Two days after the whole debacle, Shikaku went back to their spot and waited. Soon enough, a golden light sneaked beneath his eyelid. He opened his eyes to the sight of his friend leaning over him. "Hey."

"Hey," Hikari did not smile. Sterness still didn't suited her face. "How are you feeling?"

"Sore," he said truthfully. "Better."

And he was too. He hadn't realized how much the shadows had weighted on him, body, mind and soul, before he got push them away. They had a way of twisting your thoughts and crushing on your hopes, until you couldn't see anything past them.

"Like an idiot mostly," he added. "You told on me."

'Fucking ANBU', his mother had said. He could only assumed she had meant Owl, and since Owl woudn't dare breathe without his Hikari-sama's permission...

"I did," she admitted easely, without sounding very sorry herself. "And I don't regret it."

Of course she wasn't. And she couldn't be bothered to lie about it like anybody else. What a pain.

"Are you angry?" she tilted her head to the side, with loathsome distance.

Was he? He remembered being, at first, devastingly so. She had abandonned him, and after that she had betrayed him. At that point he had no idea who talked, him or the shades lurking still beneath his dreams.

"Not anymore. Are you?"

"Not anymore. But if you do something like that again I might kill you, moron."

Shikaku wouldn't expect any less. She would have to get in line with his mother though. "'kay."

Hikari fell back on the grass next to him. Her hand found his and he let himself be pet without a protest. Cuddles, insults and murder threats, that was so like her.

"I missed you, idiot," she breathed as her arm sneaked over his belly. Her skin tingled over his, so different from the shadows' hollow embrace.

Not as much as I did, his heart adoringly replied, fluttering under his ribcage with disgusting thrill.  _Pathetic_. "I don't blame you. I'm pretty missable," his mouth smirked instead.

" _Asshole_ ," Hikari tried to hide peals of laugher behind her hands. "I take it back, I didn't missed you  _at all_."

That was cute. Naras didn't accepted take backs tough. Once they clutched to something, they never let go. Look at the Ino-Shika-Cho, a Nara had become buddy with a Yamanaka et a Akimichi once centuries ago, and they still hadn't found a way to get away from the Naraness. There was nothing to be done, Hikari was stuck with him now. She should just accept this fact of life and plan accordingly, because Sage knew that was exactly what Shikaku was doing.

On the order of his priorities, there was Saving Shikane and his Dad, Stopping the war and Keeping Hikari by his side forever. Preferably to his side  _alone_. Shikaku had never claimed to anything but a selfish bastard.

"Sorry, we don't accept any take backs," he wiggled his eyebrows. "May we offer you a refill instead dear customer?"

She pinched his arm meanly. Shikaku took that display of violence as a positive answer.

.

.

"So we're doing this eh?" Inoichi tucked his legs under him and leant his elbows over the table. His ponytail shook alongside his head as he sighed in exasparation. "The Chuunin Examen."

Shikaku hadn't said a thing about his intentions yet. Five minutes since his teammates had invited themselve in his home, and they were already dissecting his inner struggles. That was Inoichi for you, spurting dumb nonsense all day, then casually laying out your entire and erronated thought process the next. Even Shikaku tended to forget how smart Inoichi actually was, underneath the veneer of foolish cheerfulness, and he had known him his whole life. Yamanakas had always shaped themselves that way, hidding their sharp mouth, sharp eyes and sharper mind wrapped beneath an outgoing civilan persona.

Shikaku had a real issue with attracting troublesome people who wouldn't let him sulk in his manly pain on his own. Damn blonds who had a knack for reading him like an open book. He was supposed to be a cool and collected type of shinobi not the 'let's talk about your angst' psychological guinea pig.

"Eh. You don't have to if you don't want to," he let himself crumble next to Chouza without offering his uninvited guests refreshments. Those assholes could fetch themselves tea if they wanted to, Shikaku was never moving again.

For oblivious reasons, Chuunin exams at a time of war looked nothing usual exams. In dire need of fresh meat, they were far less picky and teamwork kind of passed to a secondary place. Shikaku could very well present on his own, no one would bat an eye.

"Don't be stupid," Inoichi gave him the most contemptuous glare in his arsenal. "You're useless on your own."

Chouza hummed in agreement as he layed out bento boxes on the table. "Onigiri?" he offered a rice ball to Shikaku, who had all but melt againt the smooth wood.

Shikaku lazily opened his mouth, and that was it, chuunin exams arguments settled. Only left to break the news to Yuuki-sensei. And his mom. And Hikari. Oh joy. He couldn't wait.

"I'm more interested in that obi," Inoichi actually _winked_  as he nodded towards Shikaku's engawa.

The Nara froze when he spotted the bright sash, innocently laying in his floor. Damn Hikari and her weird habits. She always had her legs covered but hated formal clothes with a passion. She usually ended up losing up outer layers when the combined force of Sayori-san and Owl managed to force her into proper wear. Accidentally, she dared to lie with an amused giggle.

"My sister's," Shikaku replied dumbly on the spot and immediately cursed himself. That excuse might have worked with anyone but  _Inoichi_.

"Shikane would never be seen wearing an orange obi," his weird friend dismissed him with a disgusted frown. "Not her color, orange."

"You freak me out when you say stuff like that," the Nara said truthfully as stared at his teammate bemusedly. Those two had a strange love-hate relationship he wouldn't wish to touch with a ten-inched pole.

"Stop trying to change the subject," the Yamanaka narrowed his pupil-less eyes. "I know it's not Shikako-san's either. So  _spill._ "

Shikaku's mind walked a thousand miles, searching for a satisfying explanation to throw at Inoichi's smug face. Sage didn't he hated this noisy bastard. He and Shikane were made of the same 'bossy and gossip' cloth. "Fine. It's a friend's."

"A  _friend_ 's?" Inoichi clasped his hands together delightfully while Chouza blinked curiously. "A friend of the female kind, leaving pieces of her clothing all over the floor? I had no idea who had one of those, you sly dog, you..."

"Oi, she's just a kid," because of course Inoichi's mind would automatically jump straight into the gutter. "And you can't tell anyone about her."

"Oh?" Chouza bit into his rice ball thoughtfully. "You embarrassed?"

"No," Shikaku rolled his eyes. "It's  _classified._ "

Shikaku was so dead. Owl was going to kill him, and no one would ever find his remains, just because Hikari couldn't keep her freaking pants together. What a shitty reason to die.

" _No way_ ," Inoichi's mouth went slack with incredulity. "You're having us on."

"I wish man," he snorted. Even he wouldn't use shinobi regulations to cover his dirty secrets. He knew better than that.

"Classified  _classified_?" Chouza asked with a concerned frown.

"Worst. If you tattle on me, we might actually get murdered," Shikaku replied frankly. He didn't thought it would come to that, especially clan kids with elite parents like them, but he didn't kow how secret Hikari's existance actually was. No that much, or Shikaku would be long dead and burried.

"Damn..." Inoichi let out a sigh. "Is that you've been hiding for like, years?"

Shikaku silently asked for another onigiri. Chouza gingerly dropped a rice ball in his out-streched arm. Good man. "Maybe."

"She makes you happy," Chouza casually whispered with a serene smile. "Is she a pretty sort of classfied?"

Inoichi snickered at Shikaku's red cheeks. Sage, his friends had no sense of shame. He burried his burning face behind his arms. "She's a freaking pain."

"Whatever you say, lover boy."

.

.

"Good morning, Shika-kun!" Hikari dropped by the chair next to his and helped herself with his breakfast.

Shikaku smacked her wandering hand without looking up from his book, not before she had grasped a cinnamon roll in his plate though. The little pest bit into the pastry she had stolen with a cheeky grin and wiggling eyebrows. Shikaku rose an contemptuous eyebrow at her antics in answer.

Shikane would have skrieked hysterically at the sheer domesticity of the scene. Hikari had really made her nest here lately, dropping by without warning, helping herself with his stuff and invading whatever personal space he had left.

To be honest, Shikaku wished he would feel angry by the intrusion, instead of pathetically relieved from the human proximity.

"Thief."

"You love it," Hikari smiled contently as she pourred herself a cup of tea. "So, I hear congratulations are in order?"

Well, someone worked fast. Shikaku had received his results of the Chuunin Exams only yesterday. Chouza, Inoichi and him had passed with flying colors, naturally. Yuuki-sensei had even made a noise that vaguely sounded like approval, the equivalent of a ringing endorsement for their grumpy teacher.

"I know you're not about happy about this promotion, Hikari," he eventually replied neutrally. "You don't need to lie about it."

"That's unfair, Shika-kun," she leant against the back of the chair, her expression unusually closed off. "It's not the promotion I don't like, it's the consequencies. I want to be glad for you, I really do, but I can't forget you're going to be send to the  _slaughter_."

"I'm a shinobi," he told her softly. "You know that. You've always known that."

"You're  _twelve_ , that's what you are."

So what. Shinobi were meant for the slaughter, even twelve years old ones. Twelve wasn't actually that young, compared to some genius kids they gave a headband to, a pat on the head and a licence to kill. But Hikari had strange opinions regarding children and their involvement to their world, opinions Shikaku couldn't really understand. They weren't teaching their kids how to deceive, cheat and kill for the fun of it. Violence was a inherent constant in their world, and if they wanted to survive, they couldn't afford to live in a fluffy reality forever. Children needed to grow up fast, and children at a time of war had to grow up faster.

"I'm not going to be send to the front. Stop making that kicked-puppy face."

Team Yuuki hadn't been dismantled yet, and probably wouldn't be for a while. They would take harder missions, naturally, but would mostly stayed home-based to Konoha. His mother's work, no doubt. Too bad she couldn't afford to pull rank for Shikane too. Shikaku would exchange their places in a heartbit, but she wouldn't hear a word of it.

"Oh," Hikari tried to hide her relief. As if Shikaku could fail to see her glowing with happiness. "That's not what you wanted though."

"Nah, it's fine. I get it." Shikaku shruggled with faint nonchalence. He wouldn't be of any use as he was now. Not sharp enough, not smart enough. Too soft.

(can be fixed, the shadows whispered beneath the mist in his mind, let us in, little one, let us in)

"Anyway, I've got something for you," his friend swiftly changed the subject. "A promotion gift."

"Oh?' Shikaku drawled, genuinely intrigued. He eyed the velvet box she had removed from her pocket with amusement. "You got me  _jewellry_? I'm sorry, I'm too young to get married."

Old enough to kill, too young to get stuck into life-commitment relationships, that was the shinobi motto.

Hikari half-heartedly poked his shoulder. "You're so full of yourself. I'm too good for the likes of you, lazybones."

Too true. Shikaku grabbed the box without answering. Inside lied a silver necklace, made of thin chains and dangling at the end, three pendants. The first represented the head of a lion, the second a tree in full bloom and the third.. two straight lines perpendicular? Weird, so weird.

Unfortunately, as previously stated, Shikaku had a thing for weird stuff. A thing, admitedly, that started and ended with Hikari's special brand of weirdness.

"It's a sort of...talisman?" Hikari bit her lip nervously as she scrutinized his blank face, waiting for his reaction. "You know, to protect you...forget it, it's stupid..."

"Oi, that's mine, back off," Shikaku waved away her hand when she made an attempt to take back her gift. He put her gift around his neck with a defiant smirk. "No take backs, Queenie, I told you."

Inoichi would have a fit, but Shikaku was already perversely enjoying the thought of walking around with Hikari's sigil secretly tucked againt his throat. She didn't get to take that away from him. Beside, he could use the extra-protection, no one would deny that.

"If you like it, you should just say so, meanie," Hikari pouted.

He messed her golden curls with a grin. Only fair with all the times she had ruined his hair for fun.

The necklace burnt nicely against his skin.

.

.

Becoming a Chuunin had yet to spare Shikaku from babysitting duty. And if at war time he still had to watch over his younger cousins, he knew nothing he could do would stop his aunts from dropping their fawn in his lap until he got one of his own.

To be fair eight-years old Ensui hardly required much effort to handle from his part. Most of the time he ignored Shikaku algother to play with his puzzles. Ensui had a thing for puzzles, the same way Shikaku had a thing for shogi. They could spend entire afternoons like this without exchanging a word, both playing around their respective hobby or napping on the floor.

Today was not one those peaceful days.

"Say, Kaku-nii," Ensui rolled over on his belly to stare at his cousin under half-closed eyelids. "Remember when I got lost in the forest?"

Everybody remembered when Ensui, six-years old and a crybaby got lost in the Nara grounds. Shikaku got scolded by his sister even though he wasn't the one supposed to watch over him, and they all had to look for him, until he was found at the edge of the main house two hours later, unhurt and bored. "What about it?"

"I never told anyone about it, 'cause no one would have believed me," Ensui slowly kicked his legs in the air. "But you can keep a secret right Kaku-nii?"

"I guess..." Shikaku honestly had enough secrets on his plate to satisfy his curiosity for a lifetime, yet couldn't find it within himself to reject his introvert cousin when he made a effort to reach for him. "Is it a dangerous secret?"

A pause. Ensui smiled thoughfully. "I'm not sure. I don't think so. So, do you promise to keep my secret?"

"Yeah, yeah, I promise," his back leant against the wooden pillar in a falsely relaxed stance.

"It's a spirit who brought me back home."

Shikaku's only reaction was to blink skeptically. It better not be what he thought it was.  _Hikari_..."A Spirit?"

"A spirit," Ensui nodded, more enthusiastic on the matter that Shikaku had ever saw him. "A tree spirit, I think."

"And what did your spirit looked like?" he asked with mock boredom. Inside he was teething with thrilled anxiety. What had Hikari gotten herself involved with now? Owl was supposed to keep her out of being seen.

"A little girl. In gold and green. That's all I remember. She had a kind smile," his cousin reminced with a glint of happiness in his usually neutral eyes.

Of course Shikaku could see it. The young child, lost and desperate, being guided home by soft-hearted Hikari. And Shikaku himself had thought her a Youkai the first he had laid an eye upon her otherworldly smile. It made sense Ensui would come to that conclusion as well.

"A tree spirit," Sikaku sighed. "Why are you telling this now?"

"You feel different," Ensui replied oddly. "A bit like her. Like... magic? I thought maybe you've met the spirit too?"

What. Shikaku had known this particulary troublesome 'spirit' for years now. He could think of no reason for Ensui to find him changed because Hikari's presence  _now_. Beside, there was no such a thing as  _magic_  in that cruel world of theirs. "What if I have?"

His cousin's almond-shaped green eyes grew round with surprise. Shikaku felt a silly shiver of pride for being able to destabilize his already blasé relative. "Oh! I mean, that's...Are you going away, Kaku-nii?"

"Away?" the genuine worry in his cousin's voice caught Shikaku off guard. Not so much in control of this conversation, was he now. "Why would I go away?"

Ensui had a wrinkle over his nose. "Well, Haneko-baa-san says spirits take people away sometimes..."

An amused snort left his throat. What a ridiculous assumption to make, Hikari wasn't more likely to snatch him into her realm of faeries than he was. Life was no fairy tale, and Shikaku would stay right where he had been born.

(but wouldn't it be nice, to be taken away by her, lead out of this sad existence in darkness with his hand in hers)

"I thought you liked this spirit?" he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I do!" Ensui's cheeks colored with self-defense. "But spirits? They are different...they don't see things like we do. They can be dangerous, even unintentionnally."

 _Different_ , right. Maybe. "Where did you get all that wisdom from, brat?"

"Well, not from  _you_!"

Shikaku let a smile soften his stark features. "Don't worry, kiddo. I ain't going anywhere until Hogake-sama tells me to."

The necklace burnt longingly against his skin.

.

.

"Finish him Kazuto," the Ame nin ordered his summon with vicious anger.

This mission had been a disaster from the start. They had been ambushed by five high-ranked Ame nin during what was supposed simple refueling duty. Even Yuuki-sensei, most paranoid bastard to ever walk this Earth had been surprised, and in the following commotion, Shikaku had ended up separated from the rest of his team. He had managed to kill one of his opponents, but the kunoichi had dosed him with poison before dying. Fucking Ame and their fucking poisons.

And now Shikaku had to deal with a wounded leg pissing blood, dizziness weighting on his limbs and thoughts and the partner of the bitch he just murdered sending his giant salamander pet to eat him. Great. Just great.

He couldn't die here. He  _couldn't_. He had so much to do. See his dad again and ignore his terrible girl advice, beat his mother to shogi, take his sister away from the darkness eating her and give her something to nag at him for. Make Yuuki-sensei smile at least once, watch clouds drift while eating unhealthy snacks with Chouza, banter endlessly with Inoichi because he was wrong, wrong,  _wrong_.

Uncover the secrets Hikari tucked away under her smiles, smother the hurt away and kept her by his side, always. Or being kept at _her_  side, Shikaku wasn't picky.

But that was everyone at the verge of death thought, didn't they. Not me, not yet, I'm not _done_  with his life.

Shikaku ignored the nausea pulsing on his throat and the blurry stars on his peripherical vision. From his vantage point on his giant salamander's head, his ennemy was as good as unreachable to the Nara's deplated chakra reserves. The shadows grinned, giggled, danced on his fingers, eager for one last thrill. His death or their, it didn't mattered to them as long as the abyss got its due.

"Kazuto!" the Ame snapped at his summon's lack of reaction.

Instead of lunging at him, the salamander eyed with Shikaku with unfanthomable yellow pupils. To his ever lasting surprise, it shook its huge head with regret. "The boy is blessed. I cannot."

It disappeared with a puff, its summoner went "wha.." as he fell on the ground and shadows crept forwards mercilessly at the newfound opportunity. His adversary released his last breathe before Shikaku hit the ground, completely drained.

The necklace burned viciously against his skin.

.

.

Gold shines through his eyelids. Shikaku wakes to a world of green and blue.

The grass is soft under his feet, and the wind leaves kisses over his dry skin. There is a forest set in shades of brown and green, and in the middle of that forest there is a clearing, and in the middle of that clearing there is a lampost. Shikaku has never seen a lampost before in his life, but he knows, as surely as he knows he does not belong here, that this is one.

Up in the sky the sun glowes brightly, yet the light captured in glass shines brighter.

(The light, the  _light_. The shadows retreat beneath his feet, awed.)

"Oh hey," a strange man with strange clothes approaches him. "Hello! Didn't see there!"

Shikaku should be scared, or at least wary. He's not. He feels like he has forgotten what fear is. Somehow, somewhat, he knows this place. It's not his home, but it is.

The man has familiar golden hair, a familiar friendly smile and familiar blue eyes. The way he tilts his head to the side curiously makes Shikaku's heart aches longingly.

"Are you lost?" the man with the crown speaks again.

Shikaku blinks slowly. The words are foreign, yet their meaning comes to his understanding naturally. The unspoken syllabes dances under his tongue, a music he must have heard a long time ago.

This is a dream, he finally notices. Either a dream, or he's dead.

The necklace sparkles against his skin with determination.

"Where did you get that?" the man's smile flickers when he sees the pendants throbbing and glowing on Shikaku's chest. "That's my sis..."

Shikaku blinks again. The gold withdraws from underneath his eyelids. His necklace is burning again.

He is gone from the green and blue land.

.

.

"Your Majesty...Your Majesty!"

"Hush, Enkko. You're going to wake Shikako-san."

"...With all due respects, you shouldn't been here. What if someone sees you?"

"You sound like Owl, give me a break. No one ever sees me if I don't want them to anyway. Stop fretting, would you?"

"It's still very risky, Queen Lucy."

"I..I just need a minute. To check he's alive. I'll leave soon."

"...I understand. If you may allow me the impertinence, that amulet you gave Shikaku-dono..."

"Yes, what about it?"

"You do realize you have...put a claim on him, your Majesty."

"Claim is such a strong word. I'm just making a statement, that's all."

"...The Clans won't like that. We're not supposed to mix our world's politics with this one."

"Well, I wasn't supposed to get involved either, yet here I am. I think that's a bit late for that, Enkko."

"Why him then? Of all the humans of this world..."

"I don't have any higher purpose. I just like him. I want him to live. So live he shall."

.

.  
Shikaku did not came back to consciousness quietly. He was slammed straight into it instead. His leg ached like a bitch, his throat burnt as if a entire desert had grown in there when he wasn't looking and everything plain hurt. Already the dream was escaping from his memory.

Around him everything had a neutrally white shade. White ceiling, white walls, cream sheets. The air stinked like only hospitals smelt, between the bitterness of disease and the acidic agression of antiseptic. On top of it all, Shikaku had tubes shoved in his body where no tubes were ever supposed to go.

So. Alive then. He wouldn't have bet on that outcome.

(the abyss hadn't either)

" _Fuck_ ," even the swear word cut itself against his dry lips.

"Language."

Shikaku froze. He painfully turned his head to the side where the voice came from. His mother was sleeping on a cot near his bed. Chouza had somehow managed to fit his enormous body in the tiny chair and appeared to sleep soundly. A tiny monkey with a Konoha hitai-ate circling his neck had taking residence on the Akimichi's lap.

"Shikaku-dono," Enkko, Yuuki-sensei's summon greeted him solemnly. "You're finally awake."

A grunt crawled out of his mouth. "Ho..how...?"

"You've been in a coma for two days. Chakra exhaustion. The medics weren't sure you'd make it, to be honest," the monkey explained, sounding factual and reproachful at the same time.

Chakra exhaustion, eh? Not his type, that. Chouza was the one who tended to go overboard, not lazy Shikaku. To be fair, it wasn't like he had a freaking choice, ain't it. "Team?"

"Yuuki-san sustained second-degree burns on his right arm. Inoichi-kun had a concussion. All in all everyone is in good condition, except for yourself. They took turn to watch over you."

"'...kay. Thanks."

"Hikari-sama is  _extremely_  upset," Enkko added pointedly.

White had covered Shikaku's retina, but he remembered still glimpses of gold and green sparkling at the edge of his head, and the soft running bell of her voice imprinted near his sensitive ears.

"Hikari..." he told her name like a prayer, with wary devotion staining his dry lips. "Here?"

"Of course not," the monkey scowled disapprovingly.

(lies lies lies, the shadows growled, purred within his belly. We forget  _nothing_ )

There were so many questions Shikaku wanted to ask. How Enkko knew Hikari? Did the salamander knew her as well? Did every freaking summons knew Hikari? Why the deference? Where did summons actually live, and how did that relate to her? What was up with that necklace she gave him?

(what about the land of green and blue?)

He was so freaking exhausted. He could hardly string two thoughts together, even less conduct a proprer interrogation. And above his tiredness, a spark of fear had festered at the edge of his curiosity, making him hesitant to ask too many questions at once. Ensui had said it himself after all.

Spirits were different from humans.

Blink too long, question too thoroughly, and they might disappear forever.


	4. Interlude II: In the Land of Men and Beasts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright people, today we're going to focus on what's happening in Narnia, so brace yourself for some serious worldbuilding shit. Since it's kinda dense, I'm going to deliver you some keys at the end of this chapter, if you get confused you can refer to it.
> 
> A few words of vocabulary before we start:
> 
> -'sellclaw' : Narnian derogatory term to design a summon, or a Clan member in general, the equivalent of a sellsword
> 
> -'doublepaw': summon
> 
> -'singlepaw': non-summon
> 
> -'the other side': Elemental Countries' world
> 
> Regarding the characters:
> 
> -Kazuto is the salamander summon who fought against Shikaku last chapter. Not Hanzo's summon, but same Clan. I wasn't planning to actually include him in the story, which is why he got an entire part just for himself. Typical
> 
> -Fukasaku is the Great sage toad summon of Jiraiya (canon)
> 
> -Katsuyu is Tsunade's slug summon (canon), identifies to neutral gender
> 
> -Riku is Masato's (Shikaku's father) mouse summon. He's inspired by Reepicheep.
> 
> -Enkko is Sarutobi Yuuki's (Shikaku's Jonin instructor) monkey summon
> 
> Special warning: minor character's death. But it's an OC, so it doesn't really count.
> 
> Also, first part is inspired by Zootopia, I ain't gonna lie

I. Sir Bonnival, Lantern Post

.

Among the warriors of Narnia's army, there could be no greater honor than to be assigned as a Royal Guard. Only the best of the best were likely to be chosen for such an enviable position, and even then had no chance without being noticed and appreciated by one of the Kings and Queens. Obviously, a hare in a competitive crowd of cheetahs, tigers, wolves and other mighty predators wouldn't be anyone first choice as a bodyguard, or second, or third, or last choice, really, or so people kept on telling Bon.

Pff, what a bunch of sore losers. If he had listened to those people who only knew how to say 'you can't' and 'you shouldn't' where would he be now? Growing carrots in the ass of Narnia and hating every second of it, probably. Thinking about how he could be doing something significant instead, if he had been born anything but a cute little  _bunny_.

Yeah, fuck that. Maybe Bon didn't have a set of sharp claws or razor-like fangs, so what. Swords had been invented for a reason, hadn't they? So that bitter fun-sized leporids like himself could stab big bad predators in the belly. Or the eyes, Bon had a certain fondness for sinking his blade into wide orbits.

So yes, Sir Bonnival of the Shuddering Woods might not be the most well-adjusted hare in Narnia, but he'd be damn if he wasn't the fastest bastard to ever been granted a sword. His life had not been a peaceful one like it should have been, yet he had no regret. He loved his job, he loved the High King he had sworn to protect, he tolerated well enough the pompeous arses he had to work with, he freaking loved his weapon, and really,  _really_  loved rubbing his honorable position to the face of whoever said a bunny wouldn't get anywhere as a soldier.

Bon was a freaking good knight. He would die without an hesitation for his King. He might even sacrifice himself for his prissy fellow Royal Guard. Point, if anything needed stabbing, Bon was your hare.

But no one,  _no one_ , had never said anything about what a Royal Guard was to do when his King was having a whole conversation with himself in the middle of the woods. Bon hadn't signed up for that shit. Hallucinations couldn't be stabbed, eviscerated or burnt to the ground, therefore were completely outside of Bon's usual range of competence.

"I'm not crazy!" King 'Talking To Invisible People' Peter scowled at his Guards defensively and gestured towards the Lampost's empty clearing. "He was  _right there_."

"Sure thing Boss," Bon drawled, unimpressed. In Bon's rather simplistic worldview; if it couldn't be seen, heard, smelt or touched, then it didn't existed. Even magic would leave a distateful tingling on the edge his whiskers. Bwah.

"No one would dare imply you're not entirely sane, Your Grace," Reishid, ever the sycophant attempted to calm down the situation. She added in a tone low enough the King's human ears wouldn't be able catch the insult. " _Hillbilly bunny_.  _What do you think you're doing_."

" _Not enabling this madness_ ," he growled back in the same tone to the panther. "S _tuck-up bitch._ "

"I can't hear you," King Peter gritted his teeth in annoyance and graced upon them the Royal Look of Disappointment. "But I still can tell you're insulting each other. Apologies. Now."

"Please accept my most sincere apologies for my unacceptable behavior, Partner," the panther lied diligently for her beloved King's sake.

"Yeah. What she said," Bon grunted before promptly changing the subject. "Anyway, we should get back to our turf Boss."

"What, so you can tell my sister I'm having  _hallucinations_?"

Hell yeah. Queen Susan would know what to do. Queen Susan  _always_  knew what to do, for everything. It was one those absolute constants in Bon's life: the sun shall rise, Reishid couldn't see farther than the tip of her snout, cabbage tasted like butt, and Queen Susan was the most competent person in the world.

An unexpected party of thirty fauns, twenty dryads and twice as many cups of wines falling on Cair Paravel? Not a problem. Sorting out antic taxes rates from Archenland. Give her a few hours. Hosting ceasefire talks between Narnians, Archenlanders and Telmarines? No big deal.

For Bon, King Peter led the country, Queen Lucy sparkled the morals, King Edmund upheld fairness, but it was Queen Susan who held the whole thing together. When Queen Lucy had disappeared and been presumed dead, the Gentle had no wavered. Those were among the darkest days in Narnia, when King Peter wouldn't be seen outside of his room and King Edmund did not utter a single word, Susan held strong.

Bon could admire that in a person.

Maybe it shouldn't be so surprising Peter had eventually snapped. Bon felt nothing but fondness and respect for his King, but he had seen first hand how devasted the Magnificent had been by his sister's supposed death. Now still he thought of his younger sibling every day. Bon would recognized the far away look in less than a second.

"Nay," King Peter shook his head decidedly. "The boy I saw had her necklace, I know it. I'm sure he's one of those...shinobi. We're going West."

West. To the Cauldron Mountains? Where those fucking cowards of Clans had hidden during the Ever Winter while good Narnians suffered under that crazy ice bitch? Over Bon's dead body.

"My King," Reishid softly suggested. "We're expected to Cair Paravel. I'm afraid Queen Susan might get...worried by our lateness."

The same way Queen Lucy never came back from her own trip. Low blow, but efficent. Looked like that better-than-you pest had her uses after all.

"Also, King Edmund is already at the Cauldron Montains," she added, sensing a weakness in her King's resolve and going all in. "We could send him a message instead."

"Arf,  _fine_ ," Peter threw his hands in the air in spectacular act of pettiness. "But I don't want to hear a single word about my 'hallucination' or 'craziness', am I clear?"

"Cristal," Bon nodded eagerly, willing to agree to anything as long as he didn't have to get in close contact those damn sellclaws and their cursed Clans.

Fucking traitors.

.

.

II. Summon Kazuto, Asano Wasteland

.

The Asano Wasteland, ancestral home of the Salamander Clan didn't looked like a wasteland at all. Hundreds of years ago however, it used to. Legends spoke of a dry and dead soil tucked in the valley between two equally hostile montains, now turned a luxurious jungle fat with blissful chakra. Even the eldest among the eldest had never seen a glimpse of the former desert, yet the name had stuck. As a rule, the Clans cared more about fables and traditions than about facts. Hence, the 'wasteland'.

In the Wasteland, trees had roots thicker than their trunk, sineous and greedy claws grasping deep inside the river's side. The humid air weighted upon their scaly skin like a warm coat, rain fell every two days, regular as clockwork. Chakra grew steadily inside every flower, every plant, every drop of precious water.

And that was the extent of what Kazuto knew of Narnia. The Wasteland. It was almost amusing, in a way. Kazuto had run among the endless forest of Fire, guided his summoner through the fogs of Water, slept in the desert of Wind. He knew the sewers of Ame better than his own home. He travelled between worlds on a daily basis, yet had never set a foot outside of the Wasteland.

"Lord Kazuto," Chieftain Agresta's tail twitching was the only outward sign of anxiety she allowed herself. Remarkable, for a singlepaw. "Are you absolutely certain?"

As the Clan Chieftain Agresta technically ouranked Kazuto, but he was a Summon, and Summons had a special status. Which was why Kazuto was 'Lord Kazuto' and Agresta simply Agresta.

"Aye," he blinked in agreement. "It is the truth. Queen Lucy had claimed a shinobi from Leaf for her own. I had no other choice but to retreat."

And leave his summoner to die, he did not said. It might sound treatorous towards the Crown, and Kazuro was nothing if not loyal. Loyal to Aslan first, and the Kings and Queens He had chosen, to the Clan second, and only then loyal to his summoner. He'd never minded before, but then again, before it hadn't mattered, because Narnia and Elemental Nations had a time-space continium between them. The only interaction they had was limited to summoning, and the Clans had unanimously agreed centuries ago to keep their Narnian affairs and Summoning business entirely separated. Officially at least, what happened in the other side stayed in the other side.

Until Queen Lucy, that was it.

"This...changes things," Elder Kohu sighed, his wrinkled fingers curled around his walking stick.

Back in his days, Kohu-sama had been the fiercest summon of a barely born Ame. At the peak of his glory, he could shift his body the size of a house, and the poison under his tongue killed faster than a slashed throat. Now however, his name was never called upon anymore.

Just like Kazuto's wouldn't be. Who would want to make a contract with untrustworthy summons? By his action, he had endangered the entirety of the Salamander Clan, but what other choice did he have? Disobey the Queen's claim and murder her Leaf champion in cold blood? His oath to the Crown came before his contract with his summoner, and so his summoner had to die, by Aslan's will.

"We must send a messager to Cair Paravel at all haste, the Kings and Queen have to informed of this developpement," Agresta said, quickly thinking over their different options of action. "Great Sage Fukasaku is leaving for..."

Kuho-sama and himself had an instinctive reaction of disgust. Not those damn  _toads_. They were worse than lowlanders.

"Rely on this back-stabbing slimy bastard? You can't be serious, Agresta!" the former summon snarled, his mouth leaking with poisonous saliva at the simple mention of his life-long ennemy.

"We can't afford to loose time for the sake of old rivalries, Lord Kuho," the Chieftain did not roll her eyes, but it was a close call. "Fukasaku-sama has already met the High King..."

"Of course he has, that opportunist bootlicker," Kuho-sama grumbled darkly.

"Therefore he's our best chance to present our case favorably to the Crown," she finished as if she hadn't heard the interruption.

Easy for a singlepaw to say. For her, open conflict with the Toad Clan belonged to the long past. Not so much for summons, whose contracts had been held for generations by ennemies villages, currently at war with each other. Kazuto was fighting against toad summons not a week ago, had almost an eye to Gamarama's acid oil. 'Old rivalry' indeed.

"He's from  _Konoha_ ," Kuho-sama said the name like the worst of insult. "So is Queen Lucy. Toads have every interest in keeping her involved."

Unlike the Salamander Clan, who had thrown their lot with Ame decades ago.

"This problem goes further than Village's affiliations. I'm sure Fukasaku-sama can understand the urgency of the situation," Agresta argued. "Lord Kazuto, you  _must_  go with the Great Sage to explain what you saw."

Kazuto and Kohu-sama exchanged a wry glance. If technically the Chieftain had complete authority over the entirety of the Clan, it was understood summons ruled over themselves on matters concerning the other side, and that singlepaws had little to say about their affairs, and vice versa. For her to outright order him...he wouldn't be outside his rights to refuse her request, especially with the Elders' support, and Agresta knew it.

Nonetheless, if he didn't quite agreed, Kazuto understood the reasoning. With Queen Lucy's direct involvement, the status quo had been shaken to its core, and they needed to find a new equilibrium.

"I'll do as you say, Chieftain," he softly inclined his head, to her visible relief.

Maybe he would get a chance to explore his native land outside of Wasteland after all.

.

.

III. Great Sage Fukasaku, Cair Paravel

.

"If I understand correctly," Queen Susan the Gentle tapped her red-painted nail against the wooden table, "my sister gifted the necklace we sent her to this...Shikaku Nara?"

"Err...It's Nara Shikaku, actually," Edda, the Monkey Clan's envoy corrected her sovereigh shyly. "Last name goes first..."

"My apologies. So this  _Nara Shikaku_ ," she smiled with polite amiability as High King Peter vibrated in silent excitement in his seat, "is currently wearing the pendants made from Queen Lucy's dagger.  _That_  necklace?"

The lion, the tree of creation, and the cross. Hard to mistake Queen's Lucy sigil with anything else, especially considering Fukasaku had delivered the gift in person. "That's the one yes."

"And so when you," King Peter nodded at the Salamander summon quietly watching the audience," met this boy in battle and saw her sigil, you chose to retreat."

"Aye, your Majesties," Kazuto-san tonelessly confirmed.

Fukasaku held back a wince at the reminder. As every summon had to learn at some point, he knew the pain of loosing his summoner, but to abandon them... He could hardly imagine the heartbreak of leaving Jiraiya-chan to a certain death _purposely_.

"Nonetheless, Nara Shikaku was grievely wounded in the confrontation, and almost perished," the Queen turned toward the monkey questioningly.

"That's what Lord Enkko reported, your Grace."

"And was briefly seen by King Peter at the Lantern Post, but only him, at a matching time," Queen Susan finished factually.

"Who's crazy now?" King Peter murmured as he wiggled his eyebrow to the hare standing stiffly at his side. His guard snorted but didn't replied.

"I see. First of all, may we offer you our condoleances for your loss, Friend?" Queen Susan the Gentle ignored her brother's antics to incline her head with sincere compassion to the salamander.

"It's is...appreciated, your Grace," Kazuto bowed, doing a fine job at hidding his surprise at her consideration.

"Secondly. If I recall correctly," she focused her razor-sharp glare on Fukasaku. "I believe you swore 'summoning' from their world to ours was impossible, master Fukasaku. Were you  _mistaken_?"

'Or were you lying to your sovereigns', the elderly toad translated the frost tucked at the corner of her eyes into words. His fingers closed around his staff comfortingly. Fukasaku was no easely impressed newbie, and had at least five time her lifespan over the young Queen, but boya wasn't that woman  _intense_.

He sighed, silently regretting the absence of his stubborn wife at his side. As a fellow scary female, Shima might have known how to deal with the Queen's politely aggressive inquiries. Aslan preserved him from the pointed words of powerful ladies.

"My Queen," Fukasaku bowed respectfully to his sovereign. "As far as my knowledge on the matter goes, reverse summomning  _is_  indeed impossible. And if it weren't, it is unlikely any living being from the Element Countries could survive in our Narnia. They do need chakra go live after all, a commodity practically inexistant here."

Except in the Western Montains, naturally. Mount Myoboku had the highest density of chakra in the whole Narnia, followed closely by the Shikkoku Forest and the Ruychi Cave. But even there, Fukasaku doubted a inhabitant of the Chakra World could survive more than a few minutes. Theorically.

"So you have told us before," Queen Susan's eyes narrowed. "Yet that does not explain the presence of Shikaku Nara at the Lantern Post."

"If I may," Fukasaku tried carefully. "'Presence' might be too much of a word, your Grace"

Her eyes narrowed in as she straightened on her seat regally. "Explain yourself."

"Summoning is a term applicable to physical travel," the High King interjected pensively. "Which doesn't seem to be the case here."

"Precisely," he croaked. "I would say the world 'projecting' is more appropriate. Unfortunately, as I cannot think of any precedant, I can offer you no concrete explanation, your Graces, merely conjectures."

Regardless of the dangerous uncertainty a shinobi aware of Narnia presented, Fukasaku couldn't help but feel fascinated by the new prospect. He had spent decades studying the complex art of between-worlds travelling, and had no exemple in mind of a human going to  _their_ side. A priori without the use of poolwater, amazingly.

"Is there anything special about this Nara?" the Queen pinched the bridge of her nose exhaustingly, "that might be relevant to his... supposedly impossible abilities?"

"Nothing we can think about, your Majesty," Fukasaku admitted unhappily.

Naras were weird, as in 'casually consorting with soul-sucking shadows for fun and giggles' kind of weird, but not on 'crossing worlds' scale. Even if they could, it would be too 'troublesome' to bother in the first place.

Edda timidly rose her hand. "Hm...Lord Enkko said mister Shikaku's chakra have changed. It's barely noticeable, but it's there if you look for it, he said..."

"So it  _has_  to be the necklace," King Peter turned towards his sister. "The dagger was blessed by Aslan Himself after all..."

"If it's the necklace," Susan countered pointedly. "Why wouldn't it work for  _Lucy_?"

"I don't know! Maybe the owner has to be close to death..."

"We're _not_  testing that."

"Never said we should, dearest sister."

Siblings. You gotta love them.

"Ahem," the bearded human sitting at the Queen's right cleared his throat insistently. "If I may, I believe we need to focus on the  _consequencies_  before the 'how'."

Fukasaku stared at the man who had yet to speak until now warily. He had somehow hoped they wouldn't adress such sensitive subjects so prematurely

"What do you mean Peridan?" King Peter frowned.

"From what I've gathered, no human on the 'other side' knows anything of Narnia. Clauses in summoning contracts stipulate summon are under no obligation to answer question regarding their Clan, and summons are sealed to prevent accidental spilling."

"That is true," Fukasaku stuck out his tongue to show the tatoo on the back of his tongue. "Me and the wife have personally sealed all the young summons in our Clan. Even I wouldn't be able to speak of our land when I'm on their world."

"However a shinobi has seen Narnia for himself," Queen Susan concluded, massaging her temples tiredly. "Oh, Lucy..."

"It's not that much of a disaster," King Peter squeezed her arm comfortingly. "His...visit? Let's say visit, shall we, lasted barely a second, and it will be easy to consider such a vision as an hallucination due to poisoning. Friend Edda, has Enkko noticed any change of behavior with the boy since the incident?"

"He..he hasn't mentioned anything of the sort," the monkey wriggled her hands anxiously. "But he didn't knew about it, so..."

"Even if it's true," Queen Susan bit the bottom of her lips. "What if it happens again?"

Silence in the room. All of them were battle-forged warriors, they knew security required sacrifices, yet not one was inclined to speak their thoughts plainly. No one wanted to be the one to suggest assassination to protect from hypothetical exposition.

"No," King Peter clamped his fists angrily. "Absolutely not. He's just a kid. And Lucy's friend. She must have given him her sigil for a reason."

"He's a shinobi, your Grace," Peridan tried without conviction. "He has murdered already. Their kind is...different from ours..."

"I said  _no_ ," King Peter gritted his teeth furiously, before turning torward his silent sibling. "Susan.  _Say something_."

Queen Susan stared at her hands, resting on her velvet covered lap. She closed her eyes.

"Very well. We shall wait and see, then. I will write to Edmund immediately."

Fukasaku had little doubt in his mind that should she felt their country was in true danger, the Queen would give the order without an hesitation.

And Fukasaku would obey.

.

.

IV. Keeper Katsuyu, Shikkotsu Forest

.

Katsuyu waited patiently as King Edmund went through the content of the message from his sister. Three times. Usually the Just King didn't required nearly so much time to process new informations, but for that special case, the slug could understand his shock.

"I see," the King eventually put an end to their misery. Not. "No, actually I don't see at all. Who the hell is Nara Shikaku?"

That was an question Katsuyu had some intel on, luckily. "Shikaku-dono is a chuunin of the Leaf, the son of Jonin Commander and Head of the Nara Clan Nara Shikako. His father, Nara Masato, born Sarutobi, hold the Mouse Summoning Scroll."

"Naras are those...shadow binders, right?" Edmund frowned in recognition.

If Katsuyu had the necessary organs to smile proudly, they would. The brilliant boy learnt so quickly, it was a true joy to call themselves his teacher. "They are."

"You have met him Katsuyu-sensei, haven't you?" his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"I have indeed, your Grace," they admitted easely. "Shikaku-dono is very close friend with your royal sister. Hikari-sama is extremely fond of him."

Ah. King Edmund hated to be reminded of his sister's other name. He winced visibly at their slip up, but did not commented. Instead he rose an eyebrow reproachfully. "You have told me human summoning was impossible."

And so they had. To their defense, a month ago, when the King had first showed up to their Moutains, asking to be taught everything there was to know about the world his younger sister had been reborn into, it was been the entire truth. To be honest, Katsuyu still wasn't convinced otherwise. Nara Shikaku's reported case of 'reverse summoning' was dubious at the very best.

"My most sincere apologies," Katsuyu bowed respectfully. "I believe the term 'summoning' is not quite appropriate though.."

"Yes, yes, summoning, projecting, I don't care which one," King Edmund messed his hair up as he tended to when things were not going his way. The King was a brilliant man, but admittedly not a very patient one. "The point is, he crossed from the other side, therefore, it's  _doable_."

To say the King hadn't taken his sister's disappearence well would be the understatement of the year. And it hadn't taken long for the slug to notice he was much more interested in finding a way to have her back than anything else.  _Obsessed,_  some might even say.

"And if it's doable, then  _I_ 'm going to do it," the King sternly stared at them, waiting for them to argue. "Any objections?"

Aside from the fact that world crossing experimentation was incredibly dangerous, unstable and likely to get him killed, or worse? That should he not shatter his body in the process, his presence could put them all in danger of discovery from the shinobi world? None.

"I shall endeavor to assit you as best as I can, your Grace," the slug swore resignedly.

"Katsuyu-sensei," the man they called King grinned boyishly. "You are a Queen among Slugs. King? Non-binary Royal. You are a non binary-Royal among Slugs, and I am in your debt."

"Oh," he added as an afterthought, "could you contact the Mouse Clan? I want to know everything there is to know about this Nara Shikaku. And I do mean  _everything_. "

Pevensies, Katsuyu had to admit, were  _terrifying_ people. And that statement came from someone who spent half their time surrunded by pattented killer.

.

.

V. Summon Riku, somewhere in Earth Country

.

"Dipshit," Riku said instead of polite, regular, boring greetings as he puffed out of the summoning seal. "Your family is terrible. Awful. The very worst."

Riku had been convened at Shikkotsu Forest because King Edmund wanted to talk about the Second Deer Brat.  _King_   _Edmund_. About Nara 'Lazybone' Shikaku. What the actual fucking fuck?

Masato made a sound intented as a chukle, but in execution ended up closer to a gargle. And that was the moment Riku noticed how wrong this entire setting was. He couldn't recognize the field they were in, the air was embued with the scent of blood, the corpses of two humans with Iwa's gear layed out nearby.

Masato reeked of repelling, frightening  _death_.

"Oi Masato," Riku hurried at his summoner's side, taking in the scaringly white skin tainted with dark red, the grey patches under his eyes, the hand he kept presser over his belly to stop his inner organs from spilling. "What the fuck  _happened_?"

"Iwa bastards," his moronic summoner grinned sheepishly.

"You damn idiot," Riku hissed angrily, ignoring the panic raising at the back of his head. "You got gutted by those useless arseholes? What were even you  _thinking_?"

"Aw, Riku-chan, you know I never think! But I got them good, see?"

He didn't cared. He didn't gave a flying fuck about how many of them died. It wasn't worth the trade anyway. "You're useless! Okay, fine,  _fine_. Where are your teammates? I'm going to get them, you just hold on. Don't you dare die on me like that, you piece of crap."

Masato smiled, a empty stretch of the lips, nothing like his trademark full grins. "Dead, I'm afraid. All of them."

"Fuck," the mouse shook his head helplessly. "Fuck!"

"Sorry Riku-chan," he pouted as he lied back against the tree he was leant against. "But I just didn't wanted to die alone, ya know?"

"Keep the bullshit, you're not sorry at all," and then in a smaller, softer tone. "Is there anything I can do Masato?"

"Ehe, don't call me by my name, it freaks me out," his visibly weakening friend said in a far away voice, as if he was falling asleep. Except he wasn't falling asleep at all. "If you get the occasion, could you tell my deer ones I love them?"

The deer ones, the shitty nickname he got for his wife and kids. Riku had currently no other summoner than Masato, since they were deep into ennemy territory with no Konoha reinforcement, he had no idea who would get his scroll. Who knew how much time would pass on the other side before someone called upon his name?

He said: "Yeah, of course."

"Great," Masato closed his eyes. "And tell the wee ones I'm proud of them too?"

"They already know that idiot. But I guess I can tell them again."

"You're a true friend, Riku-chan," the human's head inclined to the side. "I'm a bit scared after all..."

"Don't be," he climbed over Masato's shoulder, settling in the crook of his neck. "I'm staying with you. You're not alone."

"Kay," his summoner breathed painfully. "That's good..."

He did not spoke again. Riku waited for Masato's breath to still, for his chakra to disappear steadily, for his heart rate to drop, slowly, ever so slowly, until that warm heart of his would not beat at all.

He felt the contract snap in his very bones, and was jerked out of the other side the second his summoner was gone from it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, explanation time!
> 
> -the Summoning Clans live in the Western Mountains, so they couldn't be farther away from Cair Paravel without being out of Narnia. They are loyal to Aslan and the Crown, however they have complicated relations with other Narnians; who are NOT summons. Since they used to live in semi-autarchy, especially during Ever Winter and are heavely influenced by the Elemental Countries, Clans have a drastically different culture from classical Narnians.
> 
> -Hence, Narnians have a biais towards Clans, and vice versa. The half-way hostility got better since Clans fought at Aslan's side against the White Whitch, but they're not buddies either way. Clans members call classic Narnians 'lowlanders'. 'Sellclaw' is a Narnian derogatory term to design a summon, or a Clan member in general, the equivalent of a sellsword.
> 
> -As you can guess, The Clans themselves aren't an homogenous group. They have a history of hundreds of years of hostility and alliances between them, both due to events in Narnia and in the Elemental Countries. For exemple, Toads and Salamanders really, reaaaally don't get along. They do have rules in common though, like telling summoners about Narnia being a big No No or 'what happens in the Elemental Countries stays in the Elemental Countries', at least officially.
> 
> -Inside a Clan, only approximately tenth percent of the members are Summons, or more for Clans like the Toads. The familiar expression for summon is 'doublepaw', which literally means 'one who walk in two lives'. By extension, a 'singlepaw' is a non-summon clan's member. The 'other side' is a term often used to design the elemental countries.
> 
> -In the Salamander Clan, the leader is not a summon and called a Chieftain. It's not the case in all Clans. For instance, the Toad Clan's official leadership belong to Gamabunta, considered as the most competent summon. Likewise, 'keeper' is a specific title of the Slug Clan given to their stronger summon, here Katsuyu.
> 
> -all members of a summoning clan are bilingual, they speak elemental common language (japananese for the sake of conveniance) and Narnian. Non-summons tend to use Narnian proeminantly, which is why Agresta use English pronuns, unlike the summons. Narnian don't speak japanese at all.
> 
> -Since they are likely to be called at any moment, summons never leave their Clan's territory. As they are chosen to become summons very young, most of them don't see the rest of Narnia until they retire. If they get to retire. Fukasaku is an exception, as he's very old but still a summon. In Riku's case, you don't just say no to a King, even when you're technically not allowed outside of the den.
> 
> -I've always wondered what summons won out of the deal with summoners. They put their life in danger, they have to stay available at any moment, but we don't really know why they would agree to this apparently one-sided deal. In this AU, in exchange for their service to shinobi, summons bring back chakra to the clan as a whole. Summoners are not exactly aware of that, they know they lose a constant chunk of chakra as long as they keep the summon, but it's assumed the loss is due to the chakra expense for the jutsu and doesn't 'go' anywhere. Chakra does not exist in Narnia, outside of the 'imported chakra' from the summoning Contract.
> 
> -Small objects can canonically be carried through summoning, hence the letters and the necklace between Lucy and her sibling.
> 
> -Summoners cannot be 'reverse-summoned' like in canon Naruto lore. Therefore Jiraiya never went to Mount Myoboku, actually he didn't even heard ofMount Myoboku. First rule of Summoning Clans, you don't talk about Summoning Clans. Ever.
> 
> There we go, this is non-exhaustive list of this AU rules. There was many things I haven't talked about yet, obviously, and if you have questions I'll be delighted to answer them. Or not, if it's spoiling^^

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, my first language is not English, and I'm not beta'ed. 
> 
> Please leave a comment on your way out!


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